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The Expert Podcast brings you firsthand narratives from experts across diverse industries, including private investigators, general contractors and builders, insurance agencies, vehicle specialists, lawyers, and many others.
So, how much does a bank account search or an asset search actually cost and how is it done? One of the most common purposes of contacting with a licensed investigative agency is to do an asset search. An asset search is research of records that will show the ownership of certain types of assets by an individual or a corporation.
This can be done for a number of reasons. Maybe you have a lawsuit against somebody that you've won a lawsuit. You have a judgment and now you need to collect the judgment and you have to find out where the assets are to collect. Maybe you're going to sue somebody and you want to make sure they have assets before you sue them. Maybe you're going through a divorce or maybe there's a death in the family and you want to make sure that the other parties assets are known to you or the estate or to the court. In some cases, an asset search is done for due diligence. If you're going to do some type of transaction with a person to make sure they actually have the assets that they say they do. Could be for borrowing.
So assets come in many different categories. Vehicles are a type of an asset. Real estate is a type of an asset. Obviously money, bank accounts are a type of an asset. Stocks are assets. But there are other assets that are many times overlooked. Intellectual property. If somebody has a patent or a trademark or even a website, even a copyright, even if they have something like an online business that generates income, that could be considered an asset. There's also tangible property, things that are not titled, but their own. Maybe somebody has a lot of equipment for a business. Maybe they have a stamp collection or a coin collection. All those are considered assets.
An asset search is an investigative process to look at records that show the assets in all those different classes. For example, real estate assets are maintained in recorded form at the county level. Every county has an office that records all real estate records, deeds, leans, mortgages. Normally it's the county recorder. Sometimes it's the deed recorder. Sometimes it's the county clerk. Vehicle records are kept at the state level by Department of Motor Vehicles or Department of Transportation that can be searched. Every type of record has a place to search for them.
Now, here's the bad news. There is no one national database where you type somebody's name, hit enter, and all their assets pop up on the screen. All the records are in different places. They have to be searched in each place. And most of the records are not electronic. They're not data. They're paper documents. They're hard copy records.
What about bank accounts? That's the thing that most people want to know about. How do you search bank accounts? Well, here's the thing. Bank accounts are not recorded anywhere. Technically, the only two people in the world that know about the bank account is the person with the bank account and the bank. It's not recorded in any government record. It's not downloaded to any database. It's private just like you wouldn't want your banking information to be out in public. Nobody else does either.
However, there is a way to search them. It's called OSENT. Stands for open source intelligence. Here's how that works. When a person has a bank account, many times that bank account record is shared outside of that depositor institution bubble. So, normally you have the bank and the person, they're in a bubble. All the information is in that bubble. But as soon as you start using that account for things like wire transfers, direct deposits, paying bills, paying for insurance, paying for online things like Zelle or PayPal. Now you're starting to share your banking information to outside third parties. It could be check verification systems. When you go to the store, you know, you write a check at Target, they're going to verify your check through a third party private company. Anytime that you use the bank account for something outside of the bubble, it can create a record. It can create a footprint.
So, searching for bank accounts from an investigative standpoint is using the OSENT process. Finding banking records that escape the ecosystem of the bank. That's how it's done.
So, how much does all this cost? Well, here's the problem with asset searches. The definition of asset search, there isn't a definition. There are some people that claim that if you just run a Google search on somebody and put assets after their name, John Smith assets, that's an asset search, because it might show the address where they live, might show what kind of car they have. Since there's no legal definition, somebody could call that an asset search and they'd be right. There are also asset searches which at the other end of the spectrum do a deep dive. They spend hundreds of hours going through every last document, every last record, doing tracing. That could be an asset search. And there's everywhere in between.
You will find asset searches online for 10 bucks, 20 bucks. You'll find asset searches online for five or $6,000. You don't want to just say, "I want an asset search. How much is it?" What you want to do is speak directly with a certified licensed investigator who's qualified in asset searches. Not every investigator does asset searches. Some investigators do surveillance. Some do personal protection, bodyguarding. You want to find an investigative agency which does specialize in asset searches. And you want to describe what it is that you're trying to find. specifically what it's for.
That way, the asset search can be directly tailored to getting that and only that. So, you're not paying more for stuff you don't need, but you're also getting what you do need. Because if you get an asset search that's not complete enough, you may miss assets that you could use for your recovery, your collection. But if you go too deep and find things you don't need, you're going to spend extra money.
So, don't just get a quote on an asset search because it could mean anything, right? It could mean running a white pages report on a person or a Lexus Nexus report on a person. You want to have the asset search tailored exactly for what you need. Look, sometimes the electronic records may be all you need in some areas, but you need a deeper dive in other areas like bank account. So, make sure that anybody who is going to quote you or to present to you an asset search knows exactly what you're using it for. And there's no one set amount for every asset search. They're tailoring it exactly for what you want.
For example, if you called up a new car dealer and said, "How much is a car?" There's different kinds of cars. There's a truck, there's a sports car, there's a minivan, there's a sedan, different levels. You might need more towing capacity. You want to get it matching exactly what you want.
So, if you want more information on asset searching, even training on how to do it yourself, you can click the link below and get more details on how asset searches work, what you can do on your own, and what services are available to you if you need assistance. If you like this video, be sure to click on a few others on our channel to see if there's other information that might be helpful to you about this same subject or maybe even other related subjects that could assist you with your resolution of your issue.