Ethics and the last shower
A few weeks ago Veritas Investigations Ltd received a website based enquiry regarding a background check on a celebrity. This was followed up with an email to the sender, requesting contact details so that we could know our customer and understand their requirements. The details of the email exchanges are below for those interested.
There is an ethical duty as an investigator to know your customer to ensure their requirements are sound and with the right motivations. After requesting contact details including a phone number the enquirer replied that they didn’t have a phone number and wanted to do business via emails only.
At this point it was clear that we could not establish the who the client was nor their motives for this request. Ultimately this made our decision very easy to not take the matter further.
Of course being investigators we were curious as to who would make contact in this manner using a blatantly false ruse that they did not possess a phone with which to make contact. Using investigative skills assisted by some IT knowledge I have tracked the initiator of this enquiry to an Auckland inner city address which has a business listed there. The business name is not far away from being an anagram of the email address.
In our estimation the enquiry came from a bored teen or business rival testing our ethics. Either way Dave and I did not come down in the last shower. It would be interesting to know if any of the readers of this blog know who this person is and their motives. If so please respond to the email address: Info@veritas.nz in complete confidence of course
Name: West ***
Email Address: west***04@########
Subject: Background check
Discretion: In the interest of your security please tell us the best time and contact details to receive a phone call: I need a background check done on a celebrity can you help?
__________________________________________________________________________________
"richard" <richard@veritas.nz> wrote:
Hi Max.
If you give me your phone number and the best time to contact tomorrow I'll give you a call to discuss this.
Richard
Director Veritas Investigations
0223967869
From: West
Sent: Wednesday, 10:20 PM
To: richard
Subject: Re: Query- back ground check
Don't have a phone sorry and don't got a landline email is fine though if that's fine with you?