How To Investigate Like Columbo [VIDEO]

I’m A Private Eye Looking For A Stealthy Ride For $20,000! What Car Should I Buy?

I’m a private investigator and I need a new car.

But, I hate car shopping.

So, I asked my fellow bloggers and auto junkies at Jalopnik, “What Car Should I Buy?”

It’s a weekly segment they do: these dudes (NOT SALESMEN) help REAL people find ACTUAL vehicles for sale.

And then they hilariously write about it.

Check out their advice for me.

“Adam is a private investigator who spends hours behind the wheel getting the scoop and tracking bad guys. He needs a ride that is good for work and family, something that can blend in but still looks professional. What car should he buy?

Unlike Magnum P.I., Adam doesn’t work in Hawaii, and for him to nab the bad guys, stealth, patience, and diligence are key. Therefore, he needs one that he can spend a lot of time in, but won’t be noticed easily.

Here is the scenario:

I’m a private investigator and business owner who needs both a surveillance vehicle for tracking down bad guys out in the field, but one that also doubles as respectable business owner’s ride for when I pull up to sales calls and client meetings. My current SUV (a 2006 GMC Envoy Denali) is at 200,000 miles and like any one at that mileage, needs to be replaced.

I’ve got a budget of about $20,000 and the biggest thing is this car must be unremarkable. It’s got to blend in. No sports cars, nothing weird or funky. Also, in addition to hauling my gear, I use the car to tote my family around to events and such so it needs to be practical as well.”

Tell me which one I should BUY in the COMMENTS below!!

Click here to read the full story: http://jalopnik.com/im-a-private-eye-looking-for-a-stealthy-ride-for-20-00-1793549299

Which one should I buy? Reply in the comments!

  1. 2013 Toyota Siena
  2. 2016 Chrysler Town and County
  3. Toyota Avalon
  4. 2013 Suzuki Kizashi
  5. 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited
  6. Ford Mustang

The 13 Essential Qualities You Want When Hiring a Private Eye

So you Googled “private investigator” and found a handful of web pages that look like they haven’t been updated since 1995. On one site, a guy was even wearing a trenchcoat and fedora. Ugh…NEXT!

You’ve never hired a private eye, so you have no clue what qualities to look for. But some of the bios sound promising. Former law enforcement? Sure, that’s nice. A college degree? Great. Years of experience? Excellent!

But what about the stuff you can’t include in a resume? What intangibles make a good private investigator great?

After working for a decade with some of the world’s best private eyes, I came up with some answers. Read more

Why Do Private Investigator Businesses Struggle or Fail?

Learning from failure. If you go to the recovery room at the hospital, you’ll see a lot more people with gunshot wounds in their legs than in their chests. But that’s not because people don’t get shot in the chest; it’s because the people who get shot in the chest don’t recover.

As private investigators and business owners, there’s an important parallel: Autopsies done on the patients who made it back to the ER aren’t worth as much as those who never made it back. Likewise, learning from successful companies may not be as important as learning from failed private investigator firms. Understanding what fatal mistakes led to the failure is as important, if not more, than what made successful companies great.

So, what are those mistakes? How did specific PI companies go out of business? And more importantly, what can we learn from those mistakes?

For valuable insight on this topic, we polled private investigators from across the nation for insight into how their colleagues had failed, or, how they had failed and learned. Nearly a dozen PIs chimed in to help. And, though the resulting stories may be grim, they are telling.

Here are some of the insights they shared, along with a few of my own:

Read more