The Skill of Skip Tracing

by John A. DeMarr, a licensed private investigator in California since 1985.

Skip tracing involves finding missing persons or property such as cars, boats, and other movable property that can be stolen or missed. Usually it is locating a person who has skipped out on his life and can no longer be located at his usual home or place where he resided and is no longer known to his creditors. Professional private investigators are highly skilled, expert, and dedicated in locating these missing persons. They are specialized and skilled professionals who have gotten proper training and have honed their skills with experience.

In order to be successful the investigator first needs to avail himself or herself of all available information on the skipped person. Be sure to gather the person’s social security number, full name, age, spouse’s name, place of employment and any other helpful information.

After you have interviewed all the people you can locate who may have information on your subject such as neighbors, spouse, family members, known friends, employers, co-workers then you sit down and do some computer work. First utilize the obvious sources of information such as the DMV, property records, jail records, phone records, post office records, and email addresses. These searches can lead you directly to your subject or to more sources of information.

Using one or more of the following information providers will enable you to get started by just entering your subject’s name, last address and age. The information provided by these companies should allow you to pinpoint your subject and either get his or her social security number or other identifying information to help you to locate your subject’s location.

Here are a few resources for public record information. There are many such companies.
• Free Public Records Finder
• Intelius
• KnowX
• Search Systems
• Search Public Records
• Spokeo People Search
• ZabaSearch
• Skip Tracers
• Black Book Online
• DOBsearch
• Skip Trace Portal
• TLO
• Choice Point
• Lexis-Nexus
• Accurint

Some of the above venders are free but generally there is a charge to access their databases. It may be advisable to hire a professional to do the searches for you if you have no experience. It can be difficult to glean all the available data from the site as well as pin-pointing your subject.

Another vast and continually evolving source of information is social media. There is a vast amount of information there it may not be current or valid.
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Jigsaw
• BlackPlanet
• Flickr
• Tagged
• Pinterest

To learn more call Toll free 877-493-3463. John A. DeMarr, P.I., a licensed California private investigator since 1985, and president of John A. DeMarr Private Investigators.