HAS YOUR RELATIVE OR FRIEND DISAPPEARED? HERE'S WHAT TO DO
During the past 38 years, our agency has been in business, the number of reported missing persons has increased six-fold. The numbers would be even higher if all the cases were reported to the law enforcement community.
The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) estimates that currently there are over 90,000 missing people in the United States of record in their system.
Sadly, if your relative or friend disappears, a lot of the time you are on your own.
When a person disappears, there are generally three possibilities we discuss with our potential clients:
- Foul play
- Suicide
- Person has chosen to walk away from their own life
Your first course of action should be to file a police report
Your first course of action should be to file a police report with the law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction in the matter. This is the agency that patrols where the person last lived.
While this is critical, understand that law enforcement does not have the time or resources to handle about 90% of missing persons cases. So any disappearance is an instance where the right PI can be your best friend and advocate.
Most large metropolitan police departments (that have large adult missing persons departments) are overwhelmed with these cases. They have limited resources, they are understaffed, overworked and have no overtime. Many of the major departments in this country can get as many as 10 missing persons cases a day.
Sadly, if your relative or friend disappears, a lot of the time you are on your own.
If you ever find yourself in this situation, here are some things to do and the timeline on which they should be executed:
- File a report and obtain a police report number not an incident number. Do this within 72 hours of someone who has gone missing.
- Establish a simple, straight-forward website and title it “help find(their name).com.”
- Immediately prepare a flyer with all the pertinent information on the subject. Offer a minimum $10,000 reward for information leading to locating the person.
- Post the flyer on every social media platform available. Have your friends, family and associates do the same. Don’t overlook Reddit.com, as it has an excellent and active following.
- Consider coordinating a press conference with the law enforcement personnel assigned to the case. If none, do your own press conference. You must have a hook though or no one will show up. For example, the subject left without their life-saving medications. If no hook, forget the press conference.
The family should give serious thought to hiring a private investigator.
The advantages are:
- An experienced PI in these matters will get your case moved to the head-of-the-pile with the police department.
- There are things a PI can do that law enforcement cannot. Also, some people will call a PI over the police.
- An established and experienced PI will definitely get the attention of the media and give credibility to a press conference.
Be leery of investigators who charge by the hour with no limits on spending
The one big disadvantage to hiring a PI is the cost. We are unlike any other agency in the country as we charge a flat-rate fee instead of an hourly fee. The flat-rate fee of $9,500. Because we charge a flat-rate, our goal is to locate the subject quickly… or we could be working for five dollars an hour.
Be very leery of those investigators who charge by the hour with no limits on spending.
And before your hire any PI, make sure you determine:
- What is the specific investigative plan?
- How long do you anticipate this process to last?
- What is the total cost including expenses?
You may call our corporate office anytime toll-free number below and speak with one of our investigators about your particular matter. This is done as a professional courtesy to you in hopes of guiding you in disappearance of your loved one.
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