This week, I’ve got a countdown for you of the top three hardest skips to find.

If you don’t know “skips” are people who have “skipped out” on an obligation. It’s where we get the term “skip tracing”. And we use the therm skip tracing even for people who haven’t truly skipped out. Maybe your looking for a long lost love or someone where the person really hasn’t “skipped out” but your client has just lost track of them. We still use that term “skip tracing”. But today I’m talking about people who are actually skipping out on an obligation.

Here is my countdown…

3. People Avoiding Service of Process

I’m cheating a little bit on this one and I’ll explain why. But the number three hardest skip to find is someone who is avoiding service of process. Somebody who needs to receive court papers, but they’re refusing service and even more than refusing service, they’re trying to not be found.

Now, the reason I say I’m cheating a little bit on this is because they’re not really all that hard to find. Most people you can find pretty easily. Maybe they’ve just moved and you have an old address – that type of thing. The little catch is when they’re actually refusing service. So even when you do find where they live, they refuse to come to the door. That type of thing can add a bit of a wrinkle to it.

Once you find them, then you may be have to use some tricky things to serve them. Those are the things I teach in The Investigators Ultimate Guide to Process Serving. So, while people refusing a service may be a little difficult to find, they really are just barely hard enough to make the list here.

And a little behind the scenes look as to why they’re not terribly difficult to find…

They may do a really good job of skipping out initially. They may leave their job not tell anybody where they’re going – that types of thing. You know, make a nice clean break. But… court cases drag on forever. Years. If you’ve ever been involved with one, you’d know this.

It’s common for a lawsuit to last two years. For child support, that goes until the child is eighteen, doesn’t it? If there’s a divorce at when a child is eight, you’ve got ten more years that case is open!

If someone tries to skip out, they may make a really good break initially but eventually, they’re going to make a mistake over the next six months, eighteen months or ten years! And especially by time other resources have been exhausted and they’ve called in a professional investigator, you should find plenty of clues to where they are.

Imagine for a moment someone who made a good clean break – skipped out. Lo and behold, a little later in the year, their bowling leagues starts up again and sure enough they go back into that bowling league. They simply dropped their guard. They go six months or more and they say, “Well, nothing’s happened. I haven’t had any court papers. My ex isn’t calling me and bothering me.” So they drop their guard. It’s very exhausting to truly remain skipped out and you life without leaving a trail.

2. Bail Jumpers

Why are they harder to find? Simply because they have more to lose.

They know they missed their court appointment. They know they should’ve shown up. And they’re taking steps not to be found. They’re not going back to their apartment… at least for a while. Maybe they’re staying at their girlfriend’s place, that type of thing.

The reason they’re difficult is because they’re on guard. Bail jumpers can be a little bit tricky to find, but not impossible. They can be found. But since they’re more on guard, their families can be also! So pretexts on their families are going to be a little more difficult.

3. Repossessions / “Repos”

The number one difficult skips to find… peoples who’s car you need to repossess.

Even more than bail jumpers who don’t want to spend the night in jail, people do not want to lose their car.

Think about it… people get picked up for an outstanding arrest warrant or by a bounty hunter and they know they’re going to do an overnight in jail. Or maybe they spend the whole weekend in lock-up before seeing a judge on Monday. But the reality is, they’re gonna’ plea guilty to a lesser offense and be out pretty quick and it’s over. But people do not want to lose their car. They know once it’s gone, it’s gone!

And it’s a burden for someone in that circumstance to try and get another vehicle.

Now, because these are difficult, I always charge more for these cases. I charge $500 to $550 (usually $550), to find the vehicle.

And the reasons that these are difficult (aside the fact the person is trying to hide the car) is that but by time again you (as a professional investigator) get a call on this from the creditor, the repo guy has tried and tried. He’s tried hard! And probably, tried his or her best tricks to get this car.

Even if the repo guy’s not being tricky, they have gone up and knocked on the debtor’s door repeatedly. They’ve made the phone calls. They’ve done the drive-bys. At this point the person you’re looking for knows they are being “hunted” and they’re taking extraordinary measures to make sure you don’t get the car. And that makes them the most difficult skips to find. (In my humble opinion.)

They’re not impossible. And they’re certainly worth it. But they are tough.

Just don’t get so caught up in it that you forget, you really just need to find the car. Sure that usually means finding them first, but if you have a way to locate the car, you can save your efforts looking for the debtor.

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye,
Private Investigator

P.S. – Don’t miss my special report titled… If You Want To be a Private Investigator Give Up… Unless You Do These Three Things. You can get it right here…