This page will be dedicated to the trials and tribulations of the fictitious Harry the P.I. It will follow him through the different cases that he has encounter and how he handled them as well as how he used a confidential assistant to help his business run more smoothly.

While Harry is fictitious, the cases he encounters and the way that he uses a confidential assistant can happen and do happen in the “real world.” I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I have enjoyed creating them.

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Harry The PI: Being Tailed

Once Harry finished up the missing birth mother case, he was contacted by another potential client.  They wanted to meet with him right away.
 
On his way to meet with his client at a local restaurant, he looked in his rearview mirror and noticed something odd.  Being an investigator and doing his fair share of motorized surveillance (tailing a subject) he noticed what seemed like a suspicious sedan following him, so he decided to see if his suspicions were correct.

First he made an unexpected left hand turn and sped up a little bit, as did the sedan. He then stopped at a red light and got in the right turn only lane and then when the light went green, he went straight. The sedan follows.  He finally decides to make on final left turn and see what happens.

He turns left onto a side street without much traffic.  So does the sedan. Harry decides once and for he is going to confront this person.  So he goes done the road a little and pulls off to the side in front of a house. He shuts the car off and acts like he is getting something to take into the house with him. He gets out of the car and starts to walk up the walkway and he hears the sedan turn off the engine.

He starts running to the sedan and sees the driver fumbling to get it started so he can make a clean get away. But Harry is too fast for him and gets to the drivers side window before the car gets started. Surprised, he realizes it is one of his competitors name Patrick.

Patrick, he yells, what the hell are you doing following me?  Patrick replies that it was harmless. He tells Harry, “One of my best clients I lost to you and I am trying to figure out how you are able to serve so many clients and still have time off. So I’ve been following you.”

Harry tells Patrick, “Well, you won’t find it by following me and I’m not gonna tell you so back off.”

Harry turns and walks away knowing that his VA is his best asset and that if it wasn’t for her, he would be lost.

Harry The PI: Cleaning Up The Backlog

Harry has been spending most of his time following up on leads for his birth mother case.  He finally got to a point where he had to wait for one of his contacts to get back to him before he could finish. He got to looking over his backlog that was piling up on his desk and he realized he hadn’t billed some of his clients for the locate work he did.  Realizing that he really needs to get that done but didn’t have the time he called Tracy at Collins-Admin Services and asked if she could create and send out some invoices for him.  She replied, “Sure, just email me samples of older invoices, the information about your clients, the services you performed and I can get them mailed out for you. So he sent her all the information she requested.

Later in the day, he noticed that a client had sent him a spreadsheet of locates he wanted done but it wasn’t in the format that Harry used. It had 150 names with the first and last name in one column, the city, state and zip in another column and he wanted them all in their own column and he really didn’t feel like retyping them all so he once again called Collins-Admin Services to see if she could help.  He explained how he wanted it fixed and told her he needed it ASAP. She said, “Sure, I will have it back to you later this afternoon.”

A couple of hours goes by and Harry gets an email from Tracy with the corrected spreadsheet and copies of the invoices that he wanted completed. He emails her back and says, “Wow, that was quick, go ahead and bill me.”

Shortly after that, he receives her invoice in his inbox. The invoice is for $30 dollars. He calls her and says, “Is this correct?” She replies, “Yes, it only took me an hour to do that for you.” He replies, “Wow, it would’ve taken me at least an hour just to do the spreadsheet, how do you do it?” She replies, “Ah, but a confidential assistant never gives away her secrets.” They both laughed.

With a smile on his face, Harry proceeds to pay her via online payments and realizes that he just found him a trustworthy, hardworking, confidential assistant. One that he can see working with for a long time to come.

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Harry The PI: The Search For A Birth Mother

After a much needed hiatus, Harry had started to jump back into his business with both feet.  One of the first cases he took was a young man looking for his birth mother.

John was a man of about 30, he had been in and out of foster homes until the age of six when a nice couple adopted him.  Once he was adopted, he grew up like any normal child would, he had a dog, rode his bike, went on vacation, and had lots of friends. 

During his childhood, he always had a hole in his heart and soul not knowing who he came from, who he looked like, and who he most acted like.  John thought about searching for his mother many times before but figured she didn’t want to meet him, because after all she did place him in foster care. Finally at the coaxing of his wife, he decided to pursue the search a little harder.

John had done all the usual searching on the adoption and genealogy sites, to no avail.  He even tried to get additional information from the Children & Youth services in his birth town but unfortunately, they were unable to offer him any help.

So with his place of birth, hospital of birth, date of birth and the name of his birth mother being all the information he had, he decided to hire a private investigator, Harry.

Harry started out by sitting down and interviewing John to see what additional information he could possibly get out of him.  After discovering, what Harry felt was the only information he could at this time, Harry told John he would be in touch.

Once John left, Harry sat down to listen to the interview once again to see if he missed anything.  Realizing it would be much easier to read it, Harry contacted Tracy at Collins-Admin Services to see if she could transcribe the interview. She said sure, just go to my webpage and upload the file and I will have it back to you by the end of the business day tomorrow.

Once the upload was complete, he decided he had time to work on other cases until he got the transcription back so he started doing some background checks, POE’s, and various other skip tracing tasks. It was about 2AM and Harry decided to hit the sack for the night and so he did.

As promised by 3:00pm the next day the transcription project was in his inbox.  Harry thought, “Wow, I did work that had been piling up on my desk while waiting for the transcription so it was like getting two tasks done at once with only half the effort.” With that thought, Harry went on to read the interview transcription he just received and found some interesting information.

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Harry The PI: The Case Of The Unbelievable Ending

After about 45 minutes of talking to John, they realize he isn’t giving up any additional information and that he needs to be released, so they call it a night and head back to Tom’s.

Finally October 16 rolls around and Tom and Harry get on the flight to Florida to meet with Frank, Sarah’s boyfriend at the time of her disappearance. Their first stop is the jail where Ed is suppose to meet them.  As promised, Ed is there waiting for them.  They go into the jail and start questioning Frank.

Frank proceeds to tell the investigators that yes, she is indeed alive and well and living in St. Augustine Florida. He also proceeds to give them the address where she last lived.  They leave telling Frank they are verifying his story.

They drive to St. Augustine to the address they received from Frank, they go up to the door with the picture of Sarah in hand and ring the doorbell.

Low and behold, a woman who looks astonishingly similar to Sarah answers the door.  The investigators then ask if her name is Sarah Jones. Reluctantly, she replies “yes, I am.” They all look at each other a little confused.  They explain who they are and she invites them in. They sit down and she starts to tell them the story:

“My parents didn’t approve of Frank but I thought I was in love with him, turns out, I was just in love with the adventure.”  “Anyways”, she continues, “we came up with the idea to leave town and not tell anyone so that we could be alone and enjoy ourselves without the criticism.” “Frank and I broke up a year ago.”

Harry asks, “why didn’t you contact somebody to tell them you were okay?” Sarah says, “I tried, I would pick up the phone and dial all but the last number of my parents’ house and then I would freeze and hang up. With everything I put them through and all the things that I am not proud of that I have done the last two years, I figured they were better off not knowing and coming to realize that their once overachieving daughter was a disappointment.”

Tim then said, “It’s up to you, but I really think you should call your family and tell them you are okay. I am sure that your parents will not care about what you have done as long as they know you are alive and well.” She agrees and gets up to call her family.  They are ecstatic and are going to be on the next flight to Florida.  She hangs up, thanks the investigators, and they leave.

As they are driving back to the hotel, Harry, Tom, and Ed are completely silent until Harry finally says, “Well, they have some issues to deal with but at least they will have the answers they needed.  Both Tom and Ed agree as Tom thinks to himself, ” At least it’s a happy ending.

Coming soon…….a brand new case for Harry the PI

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Harry The PI: The Case Of The Surprise Witness

Harry and Tom go over the police report and decide they really need to talk to Frank in prison.  They both agree that they should have an investigator licensed in Florida go with them because neither of them are licensed for that state and they want to cover all their bases so if they do get great evidence, there won’t be an issue of presenting it to the courts.

So Harry calls Tracy and asks if they can talk to the PI, that got the report, directly.  After looking through her files she sees that Ed did sign a consent for referral form so she gives his contact info to Harry.

Harry contacts  Ed and asks him if he would be willing to go to the jail with them to see Frank.  He says “sure, just let me know when and I’ll be there.” Harry thanks him and hangs up the phone.  He then turns to Tom and says, “Ed said he would help just let him know when.”

So Harry and Tom start discussing when would be a good time and they agree that Tuesday, October 16th would be good. So they go online to some of the discount flight companies to find the best deal.

Just then they get a phone call that another witness has come forward and is being detained at the police station on an unrelated case, but he needs to be released in about 2 hours because there isn’t enough to hold him on.

So Tom and Harry get ready to walk out the door when they realize they need to get the travel arrangements done now.  Harry emails Tracy telling her when they want to go, for how long, and that they need a hotel room & car also and asks if she can research it and make his travel arrangements. She says a reply stating that yes she can.

Tracy proceeds to search the internet viewing all the discount sites and finds one that includes airfare, hotel and care rental for a very reasonable price.  She books the package, receives confirmation and then faxes it to Harry.

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Harry The PI: The Case Of The Jailed Witness

Once Harry received the more organized, easier to read information back from Tracy, he sits down and goes through it more thoroughly.

In reading through the material he comes across a statement from Sara’s boyfriend, Frank. Some of his statement just didn’t add up.  He stated he hadn’t seen her since the Tuesday before she disappeared (she disappeared on Thursday). However a statement given by one of her co-workers states she saw Frank pick up Sara on Wednesday after her shift.

Harry turns to Tom and says, “we need to talk to Frank and see what else he has to say because his statement just isn’t adding up.” Tom replies, “okay, let’s go.”

They pull up to the house where Frank use to live and go up and knock on the door.  An elderly lady answers the door and asks, “can I help you?” Tom and Harry told her they were friends of Frank’s from high school and they were in the neighborhood and thought they would stop by and say hi.

The elderly lady tells them that he no longer lives there.  He moved to Florida a year ago and she only hears from him on holidays. They ask the lady if she knows how he can be reached and where he lives.

She replies, “the last thing I heard he had gotten arrested and is sitting in jail awaiting trial.” They say thank you and go back to their car.

Since they are both getting hungry, they decide to go to the nearest restaurant and get some food.

While waiting for their food they start discussing the case a little.  Tom says, “boy, I would really like to get a copy of that police report but it’s in Florida.” Harry agrees.  They continued discussing the case and then Harry says, “hey, I know how we can get it.  Tracy offers a referral service, maybe she has a client in Florida that she can hook us up with.”

Sitting at her home office, the phone rings, Tracy answers it and it’s Harry. “Hey Tracy, we need a copy of a police report from Florida do you have any clients that are from Florida that might be interested in getting it for us?”

Tracy replies, “yeah, let me give him a call and see if he can do it for you.  I’ll call you back once I talk to him.” So she calls Ed and he says “sure, I can do it first thing Monday morning and I will fax it to you.” Tracy says, “thanks I’ll call him and let him know.”

She calls Harry back and tells him that Ed is going to get  it and fax it to her. Harry replies, “sounds good, here’s Tom’s fax number.”

Sure enough, 11 a.m. Monday morning, Tom receives a faxed copy of the police report from Tracy.

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Harry The PI: The Case Of The Unorganized Private Investigator

Tom and Harry met at a little diner on the corner to discuss the missing persons case. Tom shows Harry all the information he has collected such as photographs of Sara (the missing girl), letters, notes, witness statements, physical evidence etc. He’s been working the case for two years and has hit  a brick wall.

They go out to where she was last seen, at the intersection of main and south streets, one block from her house. From information that he has gathered from coworkers, friends, family etc she was walking the two blocks to the local pizza parlor where she works.

The last person to see her was a neighbor who was planting flowers when her phone rang and she rushed in the house to answer it.  All she did was wave a friendly hello to Sara and that was the last time she was seen.

 While Tom and Harry were standing at the intersection, Harry was trying to sift through and locate any notes that Tom had taken regarding anybody who lives at that intersection. It was then that he realized that he needed a place, less windy, to sit and look through them all.  Harry tells Toms, “Let’s go back to your office so I can have a better area to sit down and look at the case file.” Tom nods in agreement.

Once they get back to Tom’s office, Harry starts looking through the mounds of scrap paper, notes, letters and statements Tom has taken during the course of the investigation. It is at this time that Harry realizes just how disorganized Tom is.

As he gets more and more frustrated trying to sift through the mounds of papers he looks at Tom and says “Hey, why don’t we send all the scraps of paper, notes, letters and statement to this virtual assistant that I know and have her organize it a little better for us.”

Tom looks at Harry with raised eyebrows and asks, “what the heck are you talking about? What is a virtual assistant?” Harry then proceeds to tell him what  a virtual assistant is and what they do. Tom says “Okay, we will give it a shot but how do we get it to her when she lives across the country?”

Harry replies, “we can package it up and overnight it to her and then she can take a day or so and type the information in a more orderly, organized style and then overnight it back.” Tom says (with skepticism), “Okay, fine.”

Harry then calls Collins Admin Services and speaks with Tracy to get his messages and tell her there is a package coming and what needs to be done with it.  Tracy replies, “as soon as I receive it I will start working on it and I can overnight it the next day.”

While they wait for the package to come back, Harry and Tom go out and see if they can’t try to retrace Sara’s steps hoping to find another pertinent clue that might have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Tracy receives it on Wednesday, goes through every piece of paper and then proceeds to type it up into a more easily read report and ships it overnight Thursday morning at 8am. Harry then receives it by 10 am Friday.

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Harry The PI: The Case Of The Elusive R & R

Finally, the case involving the beautiful lady had wrapped up.  It was long and grueling, one of those cases that keeps you up at night trying to fit the pieces together.

Feeling burned out, he decided to take some time and do one of his favorite pastimes, hunting.  He had a small cabin up north in the mountains, one that his daddy use to take him to.  The place where he had his first beer and as a result got his first hangover.

He loaded his rifle, shells, and all the bare necessities for living secluded for a couple of days. By the time he finishes the long four hour drive, the sun has set so he decides to turn in for the night.

 The sun starts to rise and so does Harry.  His daddy always said  “the sooner you get up for hunting, the sooner you will have that big buck.” So even though he was exhausted Harry manages to get himself out of bed and hikes the mile back into the woods, waiting for that ever elusive big buck.

He hears something! Slowly he turns his upper body to his right. He sees something! It’s a huge buck at least 200 lbs and a 12 pt rack.

Slowly, as not to scare the buck away, he raises his rifle.  Just as he gets what he believes to be the father of all deer in his sights and slowly starts to pull the trigger, his cell phone rings and the deer takes off.

Dang it, he shouts as he reaches for his cell phone. “Hello!” he says.  “Harry,” comes a voice on the other end, “this is Tom. I understand you are at your cabin.  I have a missing persons case in that area that I’m stumped on and I wonder if you could spare a few days and help me out.” Harry replies, “Sure.” And they schedule a time to meet for coffee to go over the case.

Knowing that his big buck is gone, he decides to retreat to the cabin for the night. On his way out, he gets to thinking about his business at home and realizes that his clients can’t reach him because the cell phone service is spotty at best.

He panics for a minute and then he gets an idea, he can call Tracy Collins of Collins Admin Services and ask her if she can check both voicemail and email messages for him. He will then check in with her daily and she can give him the important messages.

So he gets back to the cabin and gives her a call.  She says, “definitely, that won’t be a problem.  You just worry about that missing person and I will worry about your messages.”

Feeling relieved, he lays down and dreams of that ever elusive buck that could have been his today.

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Harry The PI: The Case Of The Beautiful Mystery Woman

It was a dark and stormy night, Harry was working a case where he had to watch a suspect for a couple of days. It was nearing the end of the second day and he was looking forward to a little R & R, because he had no cases for a couple of days.The second day comes to an end. He thought, I will go home and type up my report and mail it to the client and then it’s relaxation time.

He gets back to the office about 9 am ready to get to work on the report.  But wait! There’s a beautiful lady sitting in his office.  She had long flowing hair, lips as red as the blood that runs through Harry’s veins and she was clearly distraught.  So he puts his information from the case he was working aside, after all, he was mesmerized by her beauty and wanted to help her out.She starts to explain how her husband had died and it was ruled accidental but she believes it was more sinister than that. She asks Harry to please help her, she can pay very handsomely.  She needs him to interview a business partner of her husbands but the catch is, he’s leaving the country for a month at 1pm today. He tells her he can help.  She leaves her number and a deposit and walks out of the office.

Harry got his bearings back again after seeing such a beautiful woman he realized he had to get started immediately.  But wait, he had to get that report done today. What’s he to do? Tell his client they have to wait or call the woman and tell her he can’t interview the partner.

He was torn and then he remembered seeing a virtual assistant who specialized in private investigators.  He frantically looks for the website, after all the business partner is leaving in approximately 3.5 hours and he could be a key piece to the mystery.

He types in administrative services private investigators into the google search engine and he finds the one he was looking for, www.collins-admin.com So he takes a look at the site and gives them a call.

When he calls he gets to speak directly to the owner Tracy Collins.  He explains the situation and she replies, “Sure, we can help just fax or email your notes and we will have the report typed up and ready to go in a couple of hours.With a huge sigh of relief, he emails his notes to Collins Admin Services and when he gets back from interviewing the business partner at 12:00pm it is in his inbox.