Updated: Mar 23
A Victoria Private Investigator or Professional Investigator is a civilian employed by a Victoria BC private investigations company hired to investigate “subjects” by a customer. In Victoria, the customer is known as the "client." The “subject” is usually a person or persons but can also be a Vancouver Island business. The customer can be an individual, corporation, and even a government agency.
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The Victoria BC Private Investigator (not referred to as Victoria Private Detective) can investigate a wide variety of things; however, Private Investigators in Victoria BC mostly investigate insurance fraud for insurance companies. Victoria Private Investigators typically take on investigative cases that do not fall under the purview of a government agency, such as civil matters while BC government agencies will cover serious criminal cases. Because a Private Investigator is just a normal Victoria citizen, they do not have any special investigative privileges. A Private Investigator in Victoria BC has the same authority of any Victoria citizen with the exception that a Victoria PI is allowed to offer investigative services to customers and has the expertise in investigations.
The most common clients for Private Investigators in Victoria BC are insurance companies, law firms, private corporations, and Victoria citizens. Investigations conducted for these clients will frequently involve potential fraud. Other clients in Victoria will want to obtain more detailed information in order to adjudicate or manage an insurance claim. Many of these cases are mitigated through the hiring of a Victoria Private Investigator. They can include both surveillance and non-surveillance efforts. Victoria investigations often obtain more information faster than legal processes such as discovery (the pretrial disclosure of relevant evidence), thus providing the Investigator’s clients more information for decision-making. The Investigator’s clients can ask for investigations in Victoria on a wide variety of topics such as,
Locates, Skip Tracing, or Missing Victoria Persons Investigations
Interviewing and Statement-Taking
Network & Data Cyber Security
Forensic Investigations
Theft Investigations in BC
Security Consulting
Accident Investigations & Reconstructions
Asset Recovery Investigations
BC Process Serving
Arson Investigations in BC
Most people think that Victoria Private Investigators are granted extra provincial BC legislative powers; however, this is not entirely true.
A local Victoria PI is just a civilian but has developed more tools than the general public and is more skilled and aware of how best to leverage those tools.
The level of skill, experience, and expertise will determine the cost of a Victoria Private Investigator.
Furthermore, in Victoria British Columbia, Investigators legally have the right to conduct surveillance. This means a Victoria Investigator cannot be accused of loitering. Make no mistake, Investigators in Victoria have legal means and methodologies that make them effective. In contrast, the police have access to vastly more verifiable information, such as BC provincial wide data bases only accessible by law enforcement. For a Victoria PI, much of the time, is spent in establishing or verifying information.
Investigating crime in Victoria or more correctly, investigating serious crime in Victoria is usually under the purview of Victoria BC government agencies. So, do Private Investigators in Victoria ever investigative serious crime. Short answer no, long answer yes with a “but.” Private Investigators in Victoria can and do investigate serious crime; however, it is very rare. What a Victoria Professional Investigator will investigate most in their career will be blue collar crimes such as insurance fraud. Furthermore, the few Victoria Private Investigators who have investigated serious crime have done so with large obstacles in their way.
Who would ask a Victoria Private Eye to investigate a serious crime? Typically, it is a family member or someone close to the victim or victims of a serious crime who was not satisfied with the local Victoria police investigation. This is not to say that the police investigation was poorly executed, just that the client was not satisfied with the investigative outcome for whatever reason.
The obstacles that Victoria Private Investigators face when investigating serious crime are two-fold:
the obvious first issue is access to evidence
the second, not so obvious, issue is economics
Private Investigators in Victoria are not what you see portrayed on movies and television. They do not sit around a noir style office in Victoria waiting for a serious crime file to be placed on their desk. Victoria Private Investigators need good constant revenue streams, investigating serious crime in Victoria is not one of them. As mentioned before, constant revenue stream comes from fraud investigations, at least for most Victoria Private Investigators. The issue of economics even makes it difficult for an individual to even find a Victoria Private Investigator who will investigate a serious crime.
So, who are the Private Investigators in Victoria BC who specialize in investigating serious crime? There are non. Yes, there are Investigators who have successfully investigated a serious crime or two, and became famous for it, but if you look into their career you will see that serious crime investigations makes up a very small portion of their history. This article is not to downplay Victoria Private Investigators who have investigated and solved serious crimes. A PI who has investigated and solved a serious crime in Victoria should be proud. The ability to become a Private Investigator in Victoria who has gained a reputation that will make clients confident that they can solve a serious crime is impressive.