How can a private investigator help me? It depends on the situation you can name. A licensed investigator documents facts that answer one usable question: where a person is now, whether a claim holds up, or what a record you already have a right to review actually shows. Investigation Hotline is a licensed Ontario firm at 1920 Yonge Street in Toronto. This page maps common situations to the kind of file that fits them. It is not legal advice, and a written report is not a promise about what a court, an employer, or another person will do with it.
If you are still deciding whether any investigation should be opened, that is a different question, covered under whether hiring is the right next step. This page assumes you already have a situation and need to see which kind of file it is.
The help starts with one question
A request to “find out everything” does not give an investigator a file. Help, in practical terms, is a documented answer to something you can point at. Where does this person live now. Did this contact stay hidden from the partner. Was this child where the agreement said they would be. Is this job history real. What do the records already in the client’s hands show about this stretch of time.
Intake is where that question gets written down. You name the decision you have to make, the dates or places that matter, and any record you are allowed to bring. The investigator says what can be checked and what cannot. The way a file is scoped is the same here as on any other matter: the question first, then the sources, then the report. What the work costs follows that scope. It is not a package chosen off a list of worries.
People often arrive with three worries and one fact. The useful meeting sorts them. One worry may be a feeling with nothing to document. Another may belong with the police, because someone is in immediate danger. A third may be a question a licensed investigator can actually work: a person, a claim, a period of time, or a record. The file is the third one.
A person you cannot reach
This file is a locate. You need a current address, a contact path, or a clear note of where a search stopped. It comes up when a relative has gone quiet, a witness has moved, a debtor has left a last known address, or a birth parent is a name and an old city. Finding a person who cannot be reached is the work of confirming what lawful sources show now, and of writing down what was checked.
What can go in the report is a current address or phone path the firm is allowed to use, earlier addresses that explain the trail, and the date each source was reviewed. What does not go in the report is a promise that the person will answer, agree to meet, or come home. A locate documents where a search stands. It does not control the person who was found.
Some requests are not a locate at all. If a child or an adult is in immediate danger, that is a police matter, not a file that waits on business hours. If the only goal is to get into someone’s private accounts, or to pretend to be a bank, a relative, or the person themselves, the firm will not take it. A search uses sources an investigator is permitted to use. It is not a break-in by another name.
A relationship where contact is being hidden
This file is about concealment, not about how close two people seem. A partner may be worried about a friend, a coworker, or a stretch of unexplained time. The question an investigator can take is specific: is this contact being hidden, and what do the records the client is allowed to review show. An infidelity investigation stays on that question.
Facts that can be documented include messages, photos, and schedules on an account or a device the client is allowed to access. They include public posts the client can already see, and meetings the client already knew about and asked to have noted. A report can put those items on a timeline. It cannot decide what someone felt, and it cannot declare that a friendship is an affair because the tone sounds close.
Another adult’s private accounts, a phone the client has no authority to open, and a password used without permission are not a starting point. The report is also not a court outcome. Counsel, or the couple, decides what the timeline means. If the worry is still a feeling and you cannot name a hidden contact or a record you are allowed to review, the situation is a conversation, not a file.
Parenting time and support
A parenting question is about where a child was and who was there, during a period the client can describe. Counsel often needs that record when an agreement and the week as it was lived do not match. A child custody investigation gathers those facts within legal limits. It does not decide custody. A judge does that, with the lawyer’s advice. This page is not that advice.
What the report can hold is a dated account of pickups, overnights, who else was present, and whether a plan the client already has was followed. What it will not hold is a character verdict, a diagnosis, or a recommendation that a child change homes. If a child is unsafe tonight, call the police. An investigation file is for a record, not for an emergency.
Money between parents is a separate question. The issue may be whether income, work, or a household looks like what was stated for support. A support payment investigation looks at what can be checked from records and from the activity the client has a right to ask about. It does not open a bank the client cannot lawfully see, and it does not set the amount of support. That number belongs to the court and to counsel.
A claim you are about to rely on
This file is a check on a claim, before you let a person into a home, a job, a rental, or a business deal. The claim might be a job history, a licence, a company that is said to exist, or a story about a lawsuit that was “cleared up.” A background check compares that claim with sources that can be shown to you: public records, corporate filings, civil cases, and the details the person has already put in writing.
The report says what matched, what did not, and what could not be checked. It is not a sealed government file, a medical chart, or a credit report the client has no right to pull. A clean check is also not a character reference. It means the claims that were in scope held up against the sources that were available on that date. Anything outside that scope stays outside the report.
Bring the claim in the person’s own words if you have it. A résumé, an application, a corporate profile, or a message that states the fact is more useful than a summary from memory. The investigator is checking a statement, not investigating a personality.
A workplace allegation
Employers ask for help when an internal complaint, a fraud concern, or a pattern at work needs a record from someone who does not manage the people involved. A workplace investigation starts with the allegation as it was reported: who said what, about which shift or transaction, and which records the company is allowed to provide.
The report can line up interviews with people who agree to speak, schedules, access logs the employer holds, and documents from the file. It can say what is supported, what is contradicted, and what is still unknown. It will not tell the company to dismiss someone, and it will not tell an employee whether to sue. Those are employment decisions and legal advice. The investigator’s job is the record of the question that was agreed.
A workplace file also has a boundary around privacy. Staff personal phones, personal accounts, and off-duty life are not automatically part of a complaint about a shift. If the allegation is about work, the scope stays on work. Widening it because someone is curious is a different request, and it is one the firm should refuse.
A record your lawyer asked for
Sometimes the situation is already with counsel. The lawyer needs an address confirmed, a witness asked a narrow question, or a set of public records pulled into one timeline. Investigation support for counsel keeps the file inside that request. The investigator does not replace the lawyer, does not choose the legal theory, and does not promise that a report will be admitted.
The useful handoff is a question counsel can use. “Tell me about this person” is not that question. “Confirm whether this witness still lives at this address, and note every source checked” is. The report then answers the sentence that was assigned, and it stops.
What an investigator will not do
Limits are part of the help. A firm that agrees to everything at intake is not describing the work.
- Private accounts, passwords, and phones the client has no authority to open stay closed. Asking for that is not a locate, a background check, or an infidelity file.
- The firm does not tap phones, does not break into accounts, and does not impersonate a bank, an employer, or the person being asked about.
- A report does not prove what someone felt, and it does not award custody, support, a job, or damages. Those decisions sit with the people and the courts who have that role.
- Immediate danger is not a file. If someone is at risk now, contact the police.
Within those limits, the work is ordinary and specific. Read the record the client can lawfully bring. Check the public source that matches the claim. Write down the date, the source, and the answer to the question that was agreed. Leave out the rest.
When it is still a conversation
Stay with a conversation when the worry is new and you cannot name a person, a date range, or a record. A strained relationship can make an ordinary friendship look like a threat. A tense workplace can make a rumour look like a fraud. Spending money before the question is specific produces a report that repeats the worry back to you.
Open a file when the question is already one sentence. You need an address. You need to know whether a claim is true. You need a timeline of parenting time, support, a workplace allegation, or a record counsel has named. You have something you are allowed to review, or a public source you want checked and written down.
That is the help a private investigator can actually give. The situation picks the file. The question picks the scope. The report answers that question, and it does not answer the ones that were never assigned.
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