Private Investigator Sydney’s Blog: Skip Tracing: Six Useful Tips to Try

We get regular inquiries from businesses chasing after delinquent debtors who went away, and never returned. Sometimes we take on skip tracing projects and solve them. At other times a client acts on a hint we give, and finds the third party themselves.

Six Useful Ideas for DIY Skip Tracing

Search Engines are a good starting point. Try entering the person’s first and family name, plus a unique discriminator such as their mobile number, or email address. Never overload a search string. Keep it short and simple.

Social Media are great for skip tracing, provided the person made their profile public, and added enough information so you can find them. Try their first and family name, plus one of the following: phone, birthdate, school, employer etc.

Australian Electoral Commission records are in the public domain. However, they are not a search engine: They simply confirm whether information is correct. If you think you know the person’s full names and address, you could confirm it here.

The Australian Business Network maintained by the government provides for basic, and advanced searching using ABN’s, ACN’s and personal names. If you are lucky, you could discover a post code and phone number to get you started.

The White and Yellow Pages are still out there. White will provide a phone number, but only if you know the full name, city, and suburb. Yellow sometimes yields returns if you know the name of their employer.

Reverse Australia is a possibility when skip tracing, although we don’t particularly recommend it. If you enter a phone number on its register, it may reveal the full name, service provider and street address. This information may be dated.

These techniques can be handy ways to trace ‘skips’ or debtors who walked off without paying for the goods. Hence, they form a useful part of a basic desktop investigation.

Why These Tools May Not Help with a Serial Delinquent

Serial delinquents fail to honour their financial obligations regularly, as opposed to just once where they may have a genuine reason such as illness. Regular defaulters create false identities, and change them as they go along. If you find yourself in this position, and the tools do not yield results, then you may benefit from private investigation services of AusCovert Investigations.

You can contact us in Sydney on 1800 553 788, or send us a message right away. If you phone us the first half hour of our time will be free.