J. Koerner Investigations

Skip-Tracing

Identifying the current whereabouts of an Individual

Skip-tracing is different from assets investigations and background checks. Skip-tracing is the discipline of locating an individual's whereabouts, whose information is not readily-available by conventional means. A successful skip-trace will often morph into another assignment, such as a process service, mobile notary, or sub rosa assignment.

Many people erroneously believe all there is to skip-tracing is punching in a name and coming up with a result. While sometimes this can happen, usually experience is required to produce the desired result, and experience is again needed in order to interpret the results. Physical field verification is often required as well. Below is a matrix outlining the progression of (and charges for) a professional skip-trace effort:

Service Provided	Fee for Service
Database Access: We utilize 5 different, paid-for online resources, which charge us between $25 - $50/each, per month, for capabilities to which only licensed investigators have access. Once logged in, we incur additional fees for each search performed. (People searches, premium profiles, reverse-phone searches, real property searches, etc. each incur a per-use charge over the monthly fee.) This fee to us gets transferred to the client here.	$85 Flat Fee + Actual Time @ $110/hr
Additional Online Investigation: Social media searches, county court searches, and other general online searches can often harvest unique intel of their own.	Actual Time @ $110/hr
ISO Claims History Check: This is a separate type of skip-trace, costing more than a regular skip effort.	$100 Flat Fee + Actual Time @ $110/hr
Phone Verification: Telephone follow-up (usually via pretext), to the target, as well as developed associates, is often requred in order to verify the authenticity of the developed information.	Actual Time @ $110/hr
Physical Verification: Physically traveling to a harvested address is almost invariably required to verify information, to serve process, conduct sub rosa—or to develop legitimate leads (if the target is no longer there)—by questioning the the target's neighbors and relatives. Locating some targets "online" is impossible (there is no data to harvest or it's no longer valid), in which case, again, actual field investigation to last known residences becomes necessary for canvassing.	Actual Time @ $110/hr plus Mileage @ $0.75/mi plus Photo/Video rates
Reporting: After the skip-trace has been completed, a report has to be crafted, outlining the results of the skip-trace efforts.	$55 per page

Expectations: We are master skip-tracers and can usually get a locate on a target within 30 minutes' time. A half-hour skip-trace effort, in total cost, translates to a 0.5 file setup fee, a $85 flat rate for database access, 0.5 in time for online investigation, and 0.7 hr to draft a 1.5-page report for the client. All totalled, with a 15% office staff surcharge, that is about ~$275 to conduct an easy skip-trace effort, for a paper trace only.

On the other end of the spectrum, some targets require hours and hours (even days/weeks/months) of not just online investigation—but actual field verification—in order to come up with a positive outcome as to a desired target's whereabouts. There is simply no way for an investigator to predict on which end of the spectrum a particular skip-trace effort will fall, though we believe 70% of the time we can get good paper results within 30 minutes' time.

Therefore, we typically advise a client to expect roughly a ~$275 charge for the initial paper effort. After the first phase of the investigation is completed, you will either have your results, or you can have a reference point to decide where you stand—and whether or not you wish to proceed from there to pursue physical verification of the cyber intel, serve process, set up surveillance, etc.

J. Koerner Investigations
P.O. Box 1029
Green Valley, AZ 85622
Tel: (909) 225-5448
Fax: (520) 372-8475