Advice is often given [quite rightly] for members to carry out basic due diligence on people that they enquiring about but for us newbies it is difficult to know where to begin and where to go to access various records. The most obvious thing is to use common-sense backed up with basic forum & Google searches, but what else is freely and publicly available ?

Are any forum members able to suggest basic DD procedures or techniques and/or sources like reverse number telephone directories [where their use is lawful] or Google Earth ?

I have been impressed by the detail that some members can provide to enquirers [country of origin/addresses/phone numbers etc] but envy their access to such information. Are there any other similar forums that incorporate a search facility which could prove useful; although I do appreciate that just because there is a forum posting it doesn't mean that it is true !!

Finally I do expect anybody to divulge any private or priviled sources of information but only seek help with access to sources in the public domain.

In our case, we pay for such services.

The ones providing "free" services (e.g., Google), are full of 'personal posts by unknown sources' and remember, if you paid nothing for a service, you get what you 'paid for'.


Some people confuse "an opinion" with "court case records".

Please note that I inadvertantly omitted the word "not" from the last line of my earlier post and that I do NOT expect anyone to disclosed private and/or priviliged sources of information.