There comes a time for most of us that we need to a little detective work on our own. You may not be able to afford a high priced private detective, or you just may want to do things yourself. I hope to break down several areas where you may want to "Be Your Own Detective"

Get Cool Detective Stuff
Find Someone by Phone Number
Get a Background Check by Name
Quick Surveillance Tips
How to Track Your Vehicle
How to Find Evidence
Put it All Together

Sometimes to be an effective detective you need detective stuff. Hidden cameras, wireless microphones and recorders, and other cool stuff. Spygear 4 U has a lot of cool detective stuff you can use.

Be Your Own Detective has the most comprehensive reverse phone number lookup services available. Millions of cell phone and unlisted phone numbers can be investigated so you can find the registered users. Major services like The Reverse Phone Detective and Reverse Mobile are utilized to find the information on these phone numbers.

This is one of the easiest things to do when you want to be your own detective. The first two places to check is 411.com or Whitepages.com. Those will cover land-line list phone numbers. If you cannot find the information there - go to THE website designed for you to Be Your Own Detective. All you have to do is plug in the phone number and you can find out if it is a land line or wireless carrier. For a small fee, you can get a complete background report on the owner of the phone.

You have your own reasons to conduct a background check. Maybe you met someone that you are thinking about dating, or started to date, and you just need reassurance that they are who they say they are (hah hah!! you're paranoid! :P ), or that creepy neighbor, or maybe you just think your boss isn't who she said she was.

This is also not very difficult to do. The first thing any company does when they hire you (them or the people they hire to check you out) is they Google your name. So, guess what you should do? Yep, you guessed it - the same thing. You can once again check in Whitepages.com or 411.com to get some basic public information. If you know where they are from, you can check locally the public records on the individual. Here the problems start to arise. How can I know that I have all the information on the individual? Once again, there is the one-stop solution to yout problem. I know I am sounding like a broken record, but the Be Your Own Detective website is the best place to start your investigation. All you need to do is fill out the name, and state if known and you will get back a complete report. The first time will cost you, but if you do this for a living like me, the fee for a year more than pays for itself quickly. If you need to do more than one person, pay the premium fee, and get unlimited person searches for a year. It is a real time saver.

Yes, you can find all public records available that the site can find, but you have to go out and find them yourself. How much is your time worth? For what the report gives for a one time fee of about 40 dollars, it is money well spent. Besides, maybe you will forget to check out one area of public records.

Surveillance:

1. a watch kept over a person, group, etc., esp. over a suspect, prisoner, or the like: The suspects were under police surveillance.
2. supervision or superintendence.

This is about conducting personal surveillance: either stationary or moving. I will not try to get you to be a surveillance expert in one lens. There is a whole book full of stuff to learn, just on surveillance alone, but I will give you some tips:

1) Become Invisible: No , not like the invisible woman (ok, if you CAN do that, do it). What I mean is, there are a lot of invisible people in the world for most of us every day - repairmen, gardeners, beggars, and such. I hope you get the idea without me going into a long list. Once I was able to get right up to a bad guys house and he KNOWS me, but he did not see me because there was a telephone repair truck in the neighborhood working on some phone line. I walked up beside his house carrying a big orange cone and a clipboard because I was wearing a hard hat. He never saw me.

2) Be ready to change your appearance. Use a light reversible jacket, or take off a jacket, or put one on. Be with a hat or cap (or scarf for the ladies) and without. Try having sunglasses off and on. Believe it or not, unless someone is looking for you, a couple of subtle changes can go a long ways in having yourself to be un-noticed.

3) When using vehicles - use cover. I don't mean hard cover like in a gunfight; just keep vehicles or something between yourself and who you are following. Keep in mind that the changing appearance tricks above help even if you cannot change vehicles (unless you are in some super bright custom pimped out ride).

4) Be prepared to get the evidence you are looking for. Have a small camera, video camera, recorder, or notepad, or better yet, have all four available. You may not need a 12 megapixel shot to get the evidence, one of those tiny key-chain cameras may do the trick. Maybe a small mp3 player with a voice recorder option is all you need.

Many times you may have a need to track your own vehicle. Perhaps you own a fleet, or rent out vehicles. Perhaps you suspect suspicious behavior from your spouse. Perhaps you want to know if your teenager is complying with some of your restrictions. Heck, Maybe you are just plain nosy!

Note: Tracking another person's vehicle without their permission should really be avoidedwithout a court order, unless you like being sued or going to jail.

What you need is a basic tracking device. I suggest the Mini Tracker.
It is not very expensive for this type of device. It is small and inconspicuous. It can tell you where the vehicle has been and when it was there and how fast it was driver. It can then give you that information on a map or a text file. All you need to do is charge it up, attach it to the vehicle with the convenient magnetic mount. In a week or so, remove it and plug it straight in to a USB port. It's not rocket science. Well, actually it kind-of is, but you don't need to know rocket science to use it. :P

Ok, I am not meaning to sound like a smart-a**, but look for it. You may ask how can I? Easy, you look, but the question is, what is evidence? That depends on the case involved. Are you trying to find a missing person? Are you trying to catch a cheating spouse? Are you trying to catch a thief? It all depends on what the case is.

Here are the basics: The age old who, what, when, where, how, and maybe even why. Is there any evidence that helps answer any of these questions?

What, or maybe more precisely, where you need to check is a person's "personal space." That is invasive, and if you are checking on a spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend, make sure you have good reason, because you may just be putting yourself in a bad position if you get caught.

The personal space may be very personal, like diaries, a purse or wallet, or personal stuff on a computer. This can be seen as something that is manipulative and controlling, because it is. Gathering evidence is not a nice or pretty job. Just make sure you have good reason to do it.

Once you find the evidence, usually documenting it with a photograph is enough, unless you are about to get into a big legal battle, then you need to collect the original if possible.

Ok, you did your reverse phone look-up, and your background check, and collected your evidence. Now what? The thing any good detective knows is that the report is what is going to make or break the case in most instances.

OK, maybe you are lucky and you have a photo or video of someone caught red handed, or you have a recorded confession. Still, you need to put your evidence all together in a report.

Keep the repot concise, keep it to the point. Be sure to list all of the evidence. Keep it organized.

I usually wrote my reports in this format:

Summary:
Details of Events:
Subjects Involved:
Vehicles Involved: (if there are any)
Evidence: (I will expand on this later)
Conclusion: (this is where I put my assessment of what happened and recommendations)

I hope this quickie lesson on how to be your own detective was worthwhile and maybe even just a little fun. There is always some kind of new cool stuff about how to be your own detective on my Be Your Own Detective blog.