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Things We Do Not Do - Refused Requests
We have received requests to perform certain activities which we have refused. We are well aware that we are not making a lot more money than we could, and we've heard a lot of remarks by people who have called us without reading this page, such as "Well, isn't this what P.I.'s do?", and express exasperation or try to push and manipulate us. We are not mercenaries. We do not try to maximize the amount of money we could make. We do only cases which we find acceptable, to help innocent people.
The following are some of the more common requests we receive which we refuse.
As a general policy, we do not obtain nor give away peoples' passwords, full stop. Reasons include:
This is an invasion of personal privacy of both the password owner AND their friends and associates who they are communicating with. We have heard of many situations where a person who broke in caused major disruption of other peoples' lives for various overly selfish reasons.
Business or valuable personal information can be stolen.
Personal activities of multiple people can be interfered with.
It is illegal, of course. However, even if it was not illegal, we still would not do it.
Most of the time, the request is for the password of a girlfriend. I have heard that after we refuse this, that some people have gone elsewhere to try to get this service. I think it is reckless to hire a stranger to get your girlfriend's password. Of course, your own emails may also be read, but your girlfriend could also be taken advantage of in more serious ways. There are professional and mercenary phishers, and they could use that password for other purposes, too, of course.
There are other, and often better, ways of determining if a lady is tricking a man or promiscuous by his standards, which involve public observation and/or other methods (which we generally do not discuss on the web) which do not include giving away her password to a customer.
You should also consider that most cheating ladies use chat apps and phone calls more than emails, and may have more than one email account, so that you could miss a lot of things by relying on an email account.
(Breaking into email accounts of Thai ladies has been going on for many years now, so ladies in Thailand are clued into this.)
Usually, the people who break into the accounts don't really "hack" them (though they might mislead you by claiming to have that skill). Hotmail, Yahoo, and other major services have already taken countermeasures against this, which is why your browser briefly goes into an encrypted secure connection when you click on the Login button. Instead, passwords are now usually obtained by "phishing" methods like spam about logging into your bank or PayPal account for a required update, whereby the link in the email goes to a fake site by the phisher. In the girlfriend scenario, the phisher may, for example, send the girlfriend a greeting card link in a nice pretty email, e.g., "You have been sent a greeing card! Click here to read it!" whereby she clicks on it and goes to an external site of the phisher's associates. When she clicks to close the greeting card window, another window pops up with the Hotmail or Yahoo logo saying she was logged out to an external site and asking her to log back into Hotmail or Yahoo. It looks very official but of course it is faked, as you can see by looking at the URL in your browser carefully.
Of course, the username and password are logged to a file on the phisher's website.
That is actually "deception" or "phishing", not "hacking", but many of the services which offer this mislead clients into thinking they have a super computer hacker with their staff. Sometimes, it's just outsourced to a professional phisher who is a stranger and a scammer doing anything for money. He has a log file with a list of usernames and passwords, not just your girlfriend's. Her's is just added to the list. The list may be shared among multiple people in a phishing gang, and several might enjoy reading others' emails, looking at attached photos, and playing games with other peoples lives just out of their own sociopathic egotism (such as sexual predators). It actually can get very bad.
Fortunately, "two factor authentication" has become popular as a countermeasure for this, whereby sites try to detect whether or not you are connecting from a different device, so that these phishing tactics no longer work nearly as often. If somebody asks you to give out a PIN code from your phone or email, or click on a link, DON'T. Also, when you sign up for anything, always give your phone number and/or your email address for two factor authentication, and make sure that two factor authentication is enabled.
Due to two factor authentication, people get notified that somebody else tried to log into their account.
We understand that the customer is usually trying to protect themself from becoming the victim of a scamming girlfriend. However, the solution is not to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy by subjecting yourself to professional phishers. There are usually better ways than trying to check their email account. Other ways are more reliable and secure.
In I.T. consulting whereby a customer owns the computer and has a problem, or if the Administrator's password is lost, or has some other needs as regards their own business computer system and their own accounts, which do not violate legal or moral principles, there may be a valid reason for the owner to want to reset a password or recover their data.
Sometimes there is a question of whether an employee is abusing their access to confidential company information, such as for the purpose of stealing company secrets (e.g., clients, documents) to sell or give to a competitor, or to use for setting up a competitor themselves. There are various ways of detecting this by logs on your company system, surveillance, and other methods. If your company owns the computer on-site on company premises, then you have many options. There are also other methods which are effective (and often more effective) at determining whether someone is stealing company secrets, which don't require stepping over the line.
As a strict policy, we do not try to get the call records for third party telephones, nor do we try to get anyone's bank information. The same reasons apply as for passwords, above (scroll up).
As a general policy, if you want to find out someone's address or telephone number, then we will do so if we gain the person's permission to give out their address or telephone number, and if we are convinced that doing so will not bring harm to the person. Generally, when we find the person, we ask them if it is OK to give the information to the person who hired us. If they ask us to not tell you, there is no refund. We will just report what the person told us, and enough information so that you can verify in your mind that we did indeed locate the person you wanted us to find. Usually, people allow us to pass on their information, such as family finders and many old girlfriends/boyfriends who would like to get back in contact.
The kinds of customers we do not serve include:
Stalkers of previous girlfriends
Potential kidnappers of wealthy people
Creditors or debt collectors
Pursuit of criminals
Sometimes, the person we are looking for will want to contact you themselves by email, telephone or post.
Debt collection
We have received countless requests to find somebody for the purpose of collecting debts or trying to get money back. We do not accept these cases, full stop.
Intellectual Property
Though one of the founders of Thailand P.I. previously worked for the US government in intellectual property, we do not deal with intellectual property cases for customers. The best company to deal with this is Quantico, Ltd., which is described and listed on our Links page.
Criminal Activity
Generally, we are not the kind of investigation agency which pursues convicted criminals, nor tries to confirm suspected criminal activities, nor tries to detect of lawbreaking activities. We often come across things in our investigations, such as scammers using fake documents, and we can analyze and confirm such activity, as part of another kind of case, and can help a client along those lines, but that is different from an inquiry which starts off wanting to find a known criminal and find out about what criminal activities they are involved in.
We deal mainly with non-criminal, private investigations.
We have colleagues who are private investigators who specialize in that line of work, and of course we know many government officials who deal with those matters, but we generally choose not to take on those cases ourselves. Sometimes we advise people how to pursue a case which we would not do ourselves.
We have continued many cases despite discovering that some people were involved in various criminal activities, but whether or not we continue depends upon the nature of the criminal activity. A case might be terminated or left unsolved if we discover very serious criminal activity. It's unusual, but it occasionally happens. It depends on what we find out.
The most common situation is gambling. Many gambling dens have people who watch out for the police and others, so we cannot just sit outside and wait and watch, and typically cannot go into a protected area as a stranger. We may wait far downstream for the subject to depart past our direction and resume following, and hope there are not multiple ways out or that they might not take the same way out as they came in. However, many gamblers stay up all night and to sunrise gambling, so there may be overtime issues or other reasons to terminate, in addition to the risk of losing them. If it's a remote location and/or if there are some recklessly aggressive looking characters, then we may just break off. Just discovery of gambling can be significant for some clients.
People-finder case study: We were tasked to find a lady, given only her photo, nickname, and among other things, the bar her sister worked at. He mentioned that the subject was a former bargirl who had started her own import-export business and now lived quite well. We sent a lady agent there, and the people were normally cordial until she showed the photo. One person said the name aloud and everyone suddenly minded their own business, like nobody wanted anything to do with it. It was quite unusual. Eventually, one person privately told the agent that the subject had been arrested on a major drugs charge, would be in prison for many years, and that her so-called "sister" wasn't a genetic sister. We halted the case at that point because we had a good enough result, we do not intrude into organized crime groups, and the reaction of all those people made it obvious enough to us that we didn't want to be known there. We also started to wonder about the client ... so we just ended the whole thing at that point. Result: prison somewhere, full stop.
Husband investigation case study: A foreign lady with two young schoolgirls asked us to find her husband and find out about his situation. In his home country, he had departed suddenly and for no reason apparent to the family and never gone back. Everyone was confused, and the two daughters were emotionally stressed. Many months went by with still no contact. His wife had a small income in a social service job helping disadvantaged people. His wife seemed quite nice but something seemed amiss. His wife said he was in import-export, but she didn't know any specifics, just generalities. (It sounded a bit suspicious to me, but there was simply little specific information divulged.) Eventually, with some good clues from her in-laws, we followed some leads and found him in a social situation. By then, he had an 8 month pregnant Thai girlfriend who was living with him. A matched expat socialized with him as an undercover agent. The expat agent has children and kept photos of them in his wallet, which entered the conversation, and when he asked the subject if he had any children there was an instant "Nope." and the subject carried on in conversation with no further thought, like they were truly forgotten. However, when it became clear enough that the subject was involved in serious criminal activities with certain shady friends (by his own uncareful talking while a little drunk, or was he about to try to recruit me?), we stopped the investigation and I walked out in a normal and smooth manner before I heard too much. We reported the pregnant Thai girlfriend and "Nope" response and that we were halting the case. Our customer, who was updated by SMS continuously except during the undercover interaction, got the update after the agent had departed. After hearing about his "Nope" response and his pregnant girlfriend, she immediately called back and in anger started revealing her knowledge of his criminal activities, and we terminated the relationship completely at that point and on the basis of our policy here. Basically, her husband was a professional scammer in Thailand.
If your subject is known to be involved in serious criminal activities (e.g., scams, drug trafficking), then don't ask us to do any investigation. Small illegal things we may not worry about, but serious criminal activities we prefer to avoid. If we find out the subject is involved in very serious criminal activities, then the investigation may be halted immediately at the moment we find out about any serious criminal activities, depending upon the situation. We may not want to continue finding out more, and will not be pushed by manipulative methods. We normally will report enough for our customer to protect themself. However, if you obviously already must have known about but did not tell us about criminal activities in advance of the case, i.e., knowingly kept us in the dark about them, then the relationship is ended immediately.
Notably, we have had cases involving girlfriends who we find out are taking drugs themselves apparently on a small scale and not dealing, or are small time gamblers. We may continue to work on those cases. Of course, we don't report them to the police nor anyone else except the customer, but we report to the customer so that the customer can protect themself as well as be aware of the problem.
There are various kinds of tricky ripoff schemes that operate in Thailand, usually Bangkok. These include:
Nondelivery of goods sold (a company or person orders and pays a large amount but goods not delivered)
Girlfriend scams (so many of these kinds...)
Property scams (e.g., trying to buy property which is not transferred)
Investment scams
Stock scams
Foreign exchange (forex) scams
Job placement scams (fees for paperwork)
If you are considering buying goods or property, but have not committed yet, then we can help you check out a seller as part of "due diligence". This includes visiting their location and researching their public business records.
We have staff who have worked in industry and real estate, and we are familiar with how legitimate public business information is recorded and organized.
However, if you have already been scammed in business or personal matters, then we might or might not be able to help. It depends on your situation.
We can help people and companies determine whether or not they have been scammed.
We will NOT try to get your money back, though we can refer you to a lawyer. We also will NOT engage in unlawful means to try to get your money back.
It is much better to do your due diligence before a purchase rather than after one.
There exist some hard core criminal organizations to systematically scam foreigners out of money. An example is the "boiler room" stock and investment call centers.
We generally do not investigate far reaching, hard core criminal organizations. We know other investigators and lawyers who may.
You may find that not many others are willing to help someone who was tricked, either. There are various reasons for that:
Criminals continue to exist in places where they have bought protection from local police. (There are roundabout ways to address these, using national police to override local police. See Quantico, Ltd., for this kind of work.)
You may have great difficulty tracing them and proving anything, according to the laws in Thailand or anywhere (especially if the scammers are professionals who relayed money and phone calls between multiple countries).
The police are busy managing their duties and dealing with serious crimes, and don't have a lot of time for major evidence collection on behalf of one individual, especially if you fell for a get rich quick scheme or Thai lady scam.
Many people in general have only sympathy for those who get tricked by clearly questionable schemes but are not willing to spend their time and effort. Indeed, if the tables were turned, would you help them, really?
We would seriously caution you to refrain from any sort of revenge, especially if you are considering any sort of assault or violence. That will for sure get the attention of the police as well as the authorities in your own home country. Violence is not tolerated in Thai society; for example, many criminals who were fairly untouchable otherwise have suddenly found themselves incarcerated due to a violent act.
Any kind of assault or violence is one of the stupidest things a person can possibly do in Thailand, or anywhere for that matter.
To deal with bad people, you don't need to lower yourself to being a bad person, too.
If you are committed to seeking justice, then we suggest you go to a Bangkok firm like Verisec, Ltd. (previously Quantico, Ltd., and headed by the former Managing Director of the Bangkok branch of the multinational firm Pinkerton Consulting and Investigative Services), at www.VerisecLtd.com and talk with its Managing Director, Mr. Rusty Lerner, who we've known since 1995. In Bangkok, they are located at All Seasons Place (on Wireless Road near major embassies), but of course make an appointment in advance.
Research on Competitors
We do not research business competitors. Don't ask us to spy on competitors.
We will not help copycats, ripoff artists or the like, nor do we circulate in those kinds of peer groups / reference groups. We honor entrepreneurs and institutions which honor creative people, work hard for what they've got, and care about others. We don't "steal" from them.
It is the kind of people we are in this generation, and the kinds of customers we choose to work for. We've seen many of these kinds of people in the world in our time... and we choose the good side of life to live, and steer away from the worst sides. We can help you find out about the good, the bad, and the ugly -- working to help the good side, or the victim and especially the potential victim. We've seen so much more than most people, and goodness knows there are so many people who need our experience, skills and services.
In general, there are many things we will not get involved with in any way in Thailand. However, we also suggest that you not pursue some kinds of matters using someone else, either.
Some people try to get even, often out of their own sheer ego mania, including lowering themselves to the same level as another (two wrongs don't make a right; it just makes you wrong, too).
We have a lot of customers who realize they have been scammed, victimized, or otherwise taken advantage of, who then turn to wanting revenge.
If it's the government or a bank or company who cheated you, then that's serious, but if it's a little Thai lady from upcountry, that's different.
If it's some con man systematically scamming tourists or businessmen, then you would be exceptional to not only see it as your moral duty to remove that parasite and menace from society but actually follow up your words with action. Also, you can prosecute for fraud, but for goodness sake, use a lawyer, the police and the courts for this.
Of course, you are quite unlikely to have a significant impact on the human evil in the world by trying to chase down bad people in Thailand who have done bad things to you, and you aren't going to change anyone's personality, but you might put them in your place, and do your part in this world. However, the evil in this world is immense, and your case is just a drop in the bucket. What will you really achieve? Compared to spending that time and energy other wise? Like maybe campaigning for less pollution or greenhouse gases or environmental destruction? The latter are usually a better way to spend your time and effort for society.
There are bigger and more important things in life. Life is too short already. If you want to attain greater happiness or fulfillment of your purpose in life, then we suggest you look at the big picture and get a grip on more important values and interests in life, rather than getting involved in the evil of the world, or getting even with someone who ripped you off. Take it as a challenge and an opportunity to learn some valuable lessons. Along the way, "refuse" to lower yourself to some other people's levels. Move up to higher moral ground.
There are so many bad people in this world, that the only way to get "even" is to lower yourself to their moral level. Everyone gets ripped off many times, sometimes including people you thought were worthy of being friends/lovers to some level of depth but who instead betrayed you. Better to roll with the punches and move on, and definitely not let the bad side of people switch off your good side and switch on your bad side.
Things could be worse. You could have been born into less fortunate circumstances. Take a look around in Thailand, then go look at yourself in the mirror. Watch your greed, check your ego and appreciate your opportunities in life.
Sergeant Schultz: "I see nothing! I know nothing! And I say nothing!"
Anyone who lives in Thailand will find out a lot of things that are happening here, even if they don't want to know. As private investigators, we sometimes unexpectedly find ourselves in a situation where we see or hear some things that we don't want to see or hear -- such as some Thai girlfriend involved with someone in a mafia operation. In these situations, it is best to just turn your back and walk the other way, which is what we call "the Sergeant Schultz routine", as I will explain next:
One of the most popular American TV shows from 1965-1971 was "Hogan's Heroes", a comedy about a World War 2 prisoner of war (POW) camp in Germany holding Americans and Brits as prisoners. However, the prisoners were actually spies who routinely snuck out (escaped) and back in by tunnels, and one of the German soldiers, Sergeant Schultz, would frequently see these actions but pretended not to.
When Sergeant Schultz would see the spies doing their work against the Nazis, the German soldier would immediately turn the other way and say "I see nothing! I know nothing! I say nothing!" or some variation of that. This is the best known line of the TV series, and it stayed popular for 7 years, one of the longest running series of its time. The T-shirt above went on sale 30 years later!
Sergeant Schultz was a German soldier who would say things like "it is just a job” and “I do not like to take sides.” He had an easygoing demeanor, befriended the POWs, liked food and missed his family. He didn't want any trouble, and in fact nobody did. Everyone just did their jobs.
Likewise, in charge of the POW camp was Colonel Klink, and he looked the other way, too. It was understood, without saying, that the Allied POWs would cooperate to make sure that Colonel Klink never got into trouble, and Klink did likewise in return. It was the only POW camp in Germany where the prisoners never escaped ... "officially". Reality was different.
It was made abundantly clear in the show's dialogue that Klink and Schultz were not Nazis but were just Germans caught up in the war against their will and were just doing their job, thought Hitler was crazy and wrong, and had no personal political agenda. They were genuinely good guys and did the right thing even though their jobs sometimes put them in a precarious situation.
More than 30 years later, there are now Hogan's Heroes fan clubs keeping the TV series immortal.
Of course, in our private investigations, after we do our Sergeant Schultz routine, we return to the office and tell our client that the lady is scamming him, but he doesn't need to know any details about the mafia, nor does anyone else. We did our job for the client, full stop, and the rest is nobody's business, including our own. "This Is Thailand!"
Either way, we will usually respond within 1 to 24 hours.
This website is entirely self-made, not outsourced to any public relations or web design company. We wrote all the content, and did all the programming and artwork, too, ourselves. It's still 2002 style and many people have commented on this almost 20 years later, but we prefer to do everything ourselves.
Our company is located in central Bangkok on Sukhumvit soi 2, within walking distance of the skytrain, between the Ploenchit and Nana stations.
Thailand Private Investigations,
a division of:
Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd.
Ploymitr Office Building, Floor 7
81 Sukhumvit soi 2
Klongtoey, Klongtoey
Bangkok 10110
Thailand
By appointment only, please.
Sometimes, an agent can meet you at
your location (depends on location).
Email: inbox at our domain name.
Office Tel.: +66-2255-0620
Mobile Tel.: +66-8-0062-4243 (native English speaker)
Old customers please note:
We moved our office from Pakkred, Nonthaburi (next to the government post office) to the city center. Please do not go out to our old office in Pakkred, on Bond Street. We are no longer there.
Our office is co-located with Export Quality Services Co., Ltd., aka EQ, which is the same company we previously operated under, but we split off the private investigations business to a daughter company, Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd., whereby EQ now focuses on language translation and some other things.
Mobile Tel.: +66-80-062-4243 or 080-062-4243 (native English speaker) -- call ANYTIME, 24/7 (I turn off my phone volume when asleep and leave the phone in an unoccupied home office room, so no worries about 24/7 activities.)
If you want to chat via LINE / WhatsApp, please add the phone number above to your phone's contacts, and it should automatically add me to your LINE and WhatsApp shortly after that.
For expediting in LINE, my LINE ID is alphalion (alpha lion with no space between the words).
2003 -
2024 public website, expat in Thailand since 1994.
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