20. A String Of Hilarious Rookie Mistakes
A few years back I accidently became the owner of a detective agency. I intended to just be an investment partner, but the owner and actual PI died shortly after I made my investment and lo – I now owned a detective agency.
After quickly getting the various legal licenses, etc., I just started taking cases. The entirety of what I knew about how to be a PI was from various TV shows, movies, and books. For cases, I would just rely on random people whose life has become so bad that they decide calling a PI is the next logical step. Much later I learned that normal PIs never take these so-called “domestic” cases because they are always a huge mess. Real PIs get almost all of the work from lawyers and hire off-duty cops to do all of the leg work. As a result, I had a TON of crazy cases. Several TV seasons worth. Here are a few classics:
- Guy calls me to help catch his neighbor who is knocking over his trashcans at night. We set up a small night vision camera to catch the guy. Watch the video the next day – it is the wind. The client freaks out, says that his neighbor could have had an invisibility field or could have been moving too fast (like the Flash) to show up on camera. Wants to pay us thousands of dollars to rent a heat-seeking camera or one that can shoot thousands of frames per second… Turns out lots of crazy people call PIs to investigate the TV controlling them, alien abduction, etc.
- Seventh Day Adventist lady in an abusive relationship who wants to divorce her husband but apparently needs the husband’s permission, which he won’t give her. So she wants us to hire a prostitute to seduce him, get it on video, and then mail that to the church leaders to show the marriage is broken.
- Criminal who is serving 20 years in jail for hiring a hit man (who happened to be an undercover cop) to kill his friend. In prison, he came into some money and hired us to prove he was innocent. His plan to do this was to have us tell his friend that he better recant his testimony or else our client would use his new money to hire a hitman to kill him “for real this time.” This criminal genius told us this plan on a recorded phone call from jail.
- Get hired by a wife to see if her husband is sleeping with his secretary. We follow them, recording them going into his single-bed hotel room at 10:20pm after a nice dinner and leaving together the next morning at 8am. She says it proves nothing, that they could have just been working late…
- Guy calls to ask for Paddy, my late partner. We tell him he is dead. Conversation that follows goes like this:
Bob: Dead? Tell him its Bob.
Davevr: Bob – Paddy is dead.
B: sure, ok, whatever. Who’s this?
D: This is Dave. How can I help you?
B: Dave huh? Dave… yeah, Dave, I think Paddy mentioned you.
D: I doubt it, but go ahead. How can we help?
B: I was just calling to make sure the thing is still on for Friday?
D: What thing?
B: The thing, you know…
D: I don’t know, Bob. What?
B: Well yeah, I know you don’t “know”, but is it on?
D: Bob, I have no idea what you are talking about.
B: Ok, I get it. Of course you don’t know. But – all I’m saying is, we’re good, right?
D: We are not good Bob. I don’t know what you are talking about.
B: Of course. Got it. No idea. Great. Friday?
D: Bob, Paddy is dead so whatever you think is happening on Friday is not happening. Understand?
B: Perfectly. Tell him I will see him then.
Different call, also asking for Paddy. Conversation goes like this: Guy: I was told to ask for Paddy.
Davevr: Paddy’s dead. This is Dave, how can I help?
G: Hmm, I was told to ask for Paddy.
D: You did that, I told you he was dead, so can I help or not?
G: Well, OK. I need to disappear.
D: What do you mean, disappear? Like, from your girlfriend or from the Feds? (I literally had no idea what he meant)
G: Really disappear. Like, dead.
D: I don’t know what movies you have watched, but there is no way to disappear unless you have a ton of money and a body. (I made this line up on the spot btw just to shut the guy up).
G: I have 3 million in cash. Body is no problem. Can you help or not?
D: …. I can’t talk about this on a cell phone. click
Never called back. Later found (from tracing the # that called me) it belong to a real estate investor who was being sued for millions in back taxes from the government who died in a private plane crash about a week after that call…
The list goes on and on…
In case you are wondering, I am no longer in this business and the business itself no longer exists.
