How To Do Financial Asset Investigations 5th Edition
We live in an age of distrust and suspicion with regard to the disclosure of our personal data. Daily, electronic and print media are rife with accounts of databases plundered, identities stolen from the trash, and financial records compromised. This environment ridden with the fear of identity theft or of having one’s accounts “ripped -off“ is not conducive to investigators being treated with a laid-back attitude. Individuals and institutions, with regard to queries for personal information, remain adamantly skeptical.
In other words, if any time period in recent history compelled investigators to play by the rules, this period is the one. Foremost, learn what the rules are. In the not too distant past, investigators in the private sector worked fairly loose in gathering information from sources. If you had to lie to get information, then you did a “pretext.” A good rule of thumb should be to think very carefully prior to using pretext techniques when gathering sensitive personal information like medical, financial, credit history, or confidential criminal histories not available to the public. Otherwise, legal woes may be your reward.
Become familiar with the issues of identity theft. Both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) have good Web sites on the issue. Learn the details of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). Being knowledgeable about the provisions of these laws can keep the asset investigator out of a lot of legal hot water. And always, if an investigator gets into questionable gray areas during an investigation, they should seek competent legal help from an attorney knowledgeable on consumer protection law and privacy issues.