I’ve got a huge warning today for anyone who is training to be a private investigator or looking to work in this industry.
The warning is to beware of anyone who tells you, “You have to pay to become eligible to be a private investigator.”
And specifically, I am talking about the variety of online scam organizations, no mater if they call themselves an association, or a union or an organization. If they’re telling you, you have to join them and pay money in order to be eligible to be a private investigator… that’s a straight-up lie. Period.
When you go to work as a Private Investigator, the agency that hires you will make sure that you meet all the criteria necessary and if you don’t meet the criteria, they’ll tell you what you are missing.
Heck, I even use to pay the state registration fees for my employees back when I hired new or even experienced investigators to work for my agency!
There are organizations you can join and become a member of, if you want to. But DO NOT be tricked into thinking that’s somehow your ticket into the industry, it’s not!
A legitimate organization you might consider joining or checking into is your state association. The real, official organization whose members’ are actual licensed Private Investigators and Detective Agencies. Usually they have a board of directors. A lot of times they have monthly or quarterly meetings. Sometimes, you can attend them even if your not a member!
Of course you do need to know… what you are doing when you’re a Private Investigator so I don’t want to mislead you about what I’m talking about here. You’ve got to get trained somehow. Either when the agency brings you on board, they’re going to spend their time and money and energy training you or you have to bring, at least some of those skills set, to them ahead of time.
But you do not have to pay some private organization to be eligible to be a Private Investigator. You do NOT have to pay some private organization or website and I don’t want you to fall for that.
When you are looking for what’s legitimate, I want you to know that the detective agency that’s going to hire you will tell you straight up what you need.
If they’re looking at your resume and saying, you don’t have any skip trace experience or you don’t have experience in general, then THAT’S what they are looking for.
In that case, let me suggest the Investigators Ultimate Guide To Process Serving because it’s much easier to be a Process Server than a Private Investigator and serving papers is going to build up the skills sets of skip tracing the people you need to serve and conducting surveillance to locate or to serve them! (eg. You may have to follow a boyfriend or a girlfriend to lead you to the person you are trying to serve.)
To recap…
If some organization or website is saying, “Pay us. Join our organization and you will be eligible to be a private investigator.” That’s a lie! That’s a scam and a rip-off!
If you are looking for an indicator that something is legitimate, look for a money-back guarantee. If they’re not willing to offer you your money back.. use A LOT of caution!
Of course, The Investigators Ultimate Guide Series has a complete money-back guarantee, everything that I sell has a satisfaction guarantee with no “Weasel Clauses”. You know, those tricky things you’ve got to do to get your money back.
WARNING: If a place tells you that they’ll give you your money back, but you’ve got to prove that you filed an application to get your PI license with the state… That’s ridiculous! That kind of crazy hoop you have to jump through is insane! I don’t even know how a person could offer that kind of so-called “guarantee” in good conscience!
I give you a 100% a satisfaction guarantee. You get the training, you watch it, maybe you like it but the more that you look at the DVD cover, you say, “I just do not like the color of the DVD cover.” You know what? Return it. If your not over the top happy with my training then I don’t want your money! You’ve got a ROCK-SOLID satisfaction guarantee. You get back every penny you paid!
So, there’s a really helpful tip if your looking for what’s legitimate.
Wishing you great success as a Private Investigator,
-Larry-
Larry Kaye, P.I.