DUE DILIGENCE CHECKS: A PRE-INVESTIGATION NECESSITY

DUE DILIGENCE CHECKS: A PRE-INVESTIGATION NECESSITY

Surmount Investigations complete extensive due diligence checks before taking on any operation for any of our services so that we have the certainty and confidence that you are exactly who you say you are and that your request for us to complete an investigation and/or surveillance has a lawful basis or a legitimate purpose.

Where possible we will always endeavour to try and meet with a prospective client face-to-face as part of our free consultation service. If this is not possible we will ask for some photographic ID to be provided to us so we have confirmation of who we are dealing with along with why. Read more about DUE DILIGENCE CHECKS: A PRE-INVESTIGATION NECESSITY

HOW WE CATCH CHEATING PARTNERS

HOW WE CATCH CHEATING PARTNERS

Our Newcastle-based client had been with his partner for over fifteen years but came to us concerned about their behaviour.

She claimed to have received a promotion from work that meant she had to do longer hours now and she only ever seemed to use her work phone of an evening which was ‘fingerprint-locked’ and always vibrating causing her to get up and leave the room when it did. On top of that, their sex life had decreased and she seemed perpetually irritated by him. Read more about HOW WE CATCH CHEATING PARTNERS

‘ANOTHER’ DAY IN THE LIFE OF SURMOUNT INVESTIGATIONS

‘ANOTHER’ DAY IN THE LIFE OF SURMOUNT INVESTIGATIONS

Back in April this year we posted one of our most popular blog entries, which was a breakdown of a ‘day in the life’ of an investigator within the Surmount Investigations team.

We did that because we’re so often told how ‘exciting’ our job must be as PIs and asked what a typical day is like for a private investigator and in truth, no two days are often the same and we frequently break our days into different facets:

We have ‘Operational’ days, where we are out on the ground completing surveillance or investigative enquiries.

We have what we call ‘Paper’ days, where we are office based completing electronic enquiries or putting together the required paperwork for future process serves, due diligence on upcoming jobs and the like.

For this week’s blog we thought we’d dip back into the diary and show another day in the life of an investigator at Surmount: Read more about ‘ANOTHER’ DAY IN THE LIFE OF SURMOUNT INVESTIGATIONS

CRIMINAL DEFENCE INVESTIGATIONS

CRIMINAL DEFENCE INVESTIGATIONS

As part of the extensive solicitor/litigation support services Surmount offer, we provide comprehensive criminal defence investigatory support to people through Newcastle, Tyne and Wear and the whole of the North East region who have been accused of a crime they believe themselves to be innocent of and need evidence gathered ahead of an impending court date.

Our investigatory support is completely bespoke to the needs of the client and their legal representative(s) and covers all criminal charges from minor offences through to murder trials. Read more about CRIMINAL DEFENCE INVESTIGATIONS

TRACING SERVICES – FINDING A MISSING PERSON

TRACING SERVICES – FINDING A MISSING PERSON

We offer a variety of different support services to solicitors and law firms throughout Newcastle, Tyne and Wear and the rest of the North East. The two that we are most prolifically engaged for service on is our process serving and our various types of people tracing.

We offer two types of tracing service: Electronic and Agent-Led. An agent-led trace is more extensive than the electronic trace we carry out, although the latter IS the most common we’re asked to do. Read more about TRACING SERVICES – FINDING A MISSING PERSON

DO YOU HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT ONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES?

DO YOU HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT ONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES?

We met our Newcastle-based client as part of the free consultation service we offer to everyone. They explained that they felt they were being defrauded by one of their staff who had been off for 5 months with an injury they’d claimed they sustained at work.

The staff member (let’s call him ‘Keith’) was in the process of taking legal action against their employer and claimed that they could no longer walk around without sticks for support. Read more about DO YOU HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT ONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES?

INSURANCE FRAUD INVESTIGATIONS

INSURANCE FRAUD INVESTIGATIONS

surveillance photographerProbably one of the biggest misconceptions about the world of “investigation” is the whole thing of there always being that ‘smoking gun’ that the investigator finds right there at the scene, just being dropped at that exact moment by the guilty party… Job’s a good ‘un – we’re all heading home for an early finish on a Friday afternoon!

The reality is decidedly less glamorous and actually much more arduous. Take a case we worked on in the matter of a high value insurance fraud: Read more about INSURANCE FRAUD INVESTIGATIONS

EMPLOYEE CONCERNS – A Case Study.

EMPLOYEE CONCERNS – A Case Study.

A client contacted us after seeing one of our Facebook posts. She had started up her own fitness studio in Newcastle and offered bespoke exercise classes, nutrition plans and physiotherapy support to her clients.

Of late she had been hearing that one of her staff had been taking her session plans and using them whilst out working for themselves “on the QT” and, worst of all, that they’d been approaching clients at the end of sessions and actively tried to ‘poach them’ to leave our client and come work-out with them at a local gym instead. Read more about EMPLOYEE CONCERNS – A Case Study.

“LONG TERM SICKNESS” – A GOOD INVESTIGATORY STANCE TO TAKE.

“LONG TERM SICKNESS” – A GOOD INVESTIGATORY STANCE TO TAKE.

surveillance photographerAs a result of a lot of negative feedback online to a rather disreputable ‘investigation consultancy’ company and comments / posts that they made on the topic of investigating “long term sickness”, Surmount stepped into the ring, so to speak, on what proved to be a particularly contentious topic and show you where we stand and why we think it’s important others come to share the same stance.

We do a lot of work around employee concerns for companies throughout Newcastle and the whole of the North East. In an investigatory capacity, it is probably the most requested service we book work for. We do a lot of it. We’re good at it and that’s why we have a lot of businesses around the region recommend us to others who are in a position where they have concerns that they may be getting defrauded by an employee who is being less than honest. Read more about “LONG TERM SICKNESS” – A GOOD INVESTIGATORY STANCE TO TAKE.

BREAKING DOWN THE MYTHS OF PRIVATE INVESTIGATION.

BREAKING DOWN THE MYTHS OF PRIVATE INVESTIGATION.

TV and film will always present private investigation as being headed up by a dysfunctional but brilliant PI with “issues” and the stereotypical trench-coat, dirty office and glass door with their name etched on it… doing whatever it takes to secure the leads needed to ‘break the case wide open’, etc. They’re breaking into places and stealing evidence whenever the need or the plot requires it.

It’s decidedly ‘un-entertaining’ to reveal this but Surmount Investigations’ jobs (and the investigatory profession overall) is a lot less ‘easy’ and exciting.
Read more about BREAKING DOWN THE MYTHS OF PRIVATE INVESTIGATION.