Business is booming for private investigators charged with tracking down non-payers as personal debt in Britain approaches the 1.4 trillion pound mark. Of course there is an issue of financial morality here: undoubtedly some people borrow either in the full knowledge that they can't repay or have no intention of repaying. Why should people get away with not paying?
Increasingly the banks, lending institutions and some accountancy firms (themselves employed by lenders) are employing private investigators to see whether debtors have hidden wealth. Absolutely legally, they can trawl many databases to track down their quarry and discover the size of the person's debts, including credit reference agencies. They can also find out how much equity the people have in their home by examining the mortgages registered against that property and estimating the value of mortgages outstanding.
If their initial searches suggest that the person has substantial assets then the investigators may progress to surveillance. And it would seem, some are not afraid to push the boundaries.
The most notorious tactic is called "bin spinning" – searching through someone's rubbish in search of information such as bank and building society accounts, investments and pensions to provide their clients with an extensive financial picture. One gumshoe says he’s aware of investigators who have stolen rubbish sacks in the early hours of the morning, trawled through their contents, copied anything significant and then reinstated it to the bin. Apparently this is all perfectly legal.
One former private investigator, who wishes to remain anonymous, recalls using illegal methods "all day every day" for his financial clients. He claimed that every single detective or investigator breaks the Data Protection Act at least once a week and if they say they don't, they're lying. He says he made hundreds of phone calls a day, passing himself off as working within organisations. Each call of these calls would be logged and the results analysed to provide a small piece of confidential data that builds up like a jigsaw puzzle to provide a wider picture of a debtor's finances.
However, a spokesperson from the Association of British Investigators, says such tactics would fall foul of the Government's Information Commissioner. Apparently the Information Commissioner is getting much tougher with people who break data protection laws and in some cases prosecutions follow.
Another private investigator, says of his industry: "More investigators are breaking the law than not breaking it. The banks can say 'we didn't know what was happening', but it's spurious to argue that. After all, where do they think the information is coming from?
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