The phone rang. It was Jim Miller. “We know who you are,” he said. “Come on over.”
Three days earlier, I had visited Miller’s detective agency and challenged him to find out what he could on me just by using the Internet and the telephone. All he had to go on was my name and where I worked.
These days, with businesses connecting previously inaccessible customer databases to the Internet and people putting their own information on-line in exchange for a freebie or convenience, assembling a person’s identity from various searches and Web sites has never been easier.
Social Security numbers, home mortgage payments, car payments, bank statements, driver’s license numbers, unlisted telephone numbers and criminal records can all be found on-line using various means–all legitimate.
On Web sites such as Docusearch.com and E-backgroundchecks.com, anyone willing to pay a fee can pull up data culled from national credit reporting and government databases.
So, when Miller, a 41-year-old private investigator from Darien who runs Investigative Services Agency, called and said he had finished his search, I knew it was going to be bad. I just didn’t realize how bad.
What he found was extraordinary and disconcerting. As I sat in his office at 1 E. Wacker Drive, he rattled off everything from the addresses of the last five apartments I lived in to my mother’s maiden name.
“Were you born in Ohio in 1973?” he asked. “Did you live in Cleveland before moving to North Olmsted, Ohio, in 1974? Did you move to Chicago in 1997?”
Miller, who charges $750 to conduct background checks on job applicants for corporations, was able to find my birthday, Social Security number, home address, telephone number and driver’s license number as well as the make, model and license plate number of the cars I drive.
And, he had the same information on my parents and sister. He even was able to tell me the dates my grandparents died.
So where did he get it all? Most of it came from credit reporting companies such as Equifax Credit Information Services Inc., Experian Inc. and Chicago-based Trans Union LLC. Miller said he also searches some free Web sites.
“Sometimes they have outdated addresses that you can use,” he said.