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Hi
I don't know which group to ask this question and hence I am posting
here.
How do I check out whether the person whom I met online (through a
dating service) is what he said he is, i.e I have the name he gave me,
the city he lives. I don't have the exact name of the office he works
but he told me that he works for ???? (a government office). His
outgoing message at that number states his occupation and the
department he works at. He also said that he's divorced (in his email
aside from indicating that in his profile).
I was the one who initiated the contact (he was one out of the two
whom I contacted). As we exchanged a few email communications hich
went well, and then exchanged the phone numbers (note that we talked
briefly on phone once; the contact has been email ONLY since we met 3
months ago), I never thought that I would come to the point of
checking things out unless we developed a serious relationship after
meeting in person. At this point, I am not even thinking about
serious, lonlastign relations that we both stated we want in our
profile. But ...
we plan to meet (we live 2 hours drive from each other; he doesn't
push me to meet him though he always indicated that he would want to)
and I feel that for the sake of total peace of mind, I should check
into his identity and the info he gave me.
How do I go about checking it? I assume that it is not illegal to
check into it but what is the legal procedure? I have heard of private
detectives but HOW to find them so that I won't be hiring the false
ones.
Somemone suggested me that I can check with county clerk office
whether he has divorce paper on file but from what I gathered, he
could have got a divorce before he moved to his current city which is
the city that he said he grew up and his family lives. So he may have
been born there. So I need the check followings:
1. First, his true identity has to be checked:Ppicture and name match;
age
would be good too (he must have gone to high school there too)
2. I need to check whether he is single or not; whether he is living
with/involved with a woman, i.e has a steady relationship. In
fact, I
wouldn't want to get involved at all if also is involved with any
woman in
non-steady relationship. That's for later check..
3. His occupation as he told me in the department of Homeland Security
- this
is to make sure that he didn't use such an occupation to make me
gullible.
He did say in his profile that he's a lawyer.
I really don't think his identity is a problem but like I said, I need
to have TOTAL peach of mind before I develope any kind of real life
relationship.
Please advise me on how to go about it? I have NOT got involved with
anyone through online service, i.e I am a careful person.
Because of the sincereness I sensed during our early commuincation, I
have developed attractions to him and I want to at least see him and
may be get to know him ....
I WANT TO CHECK THE CORRECTNESS of all the info he gave me (I never
asked and he never said whether he was involved with anyone; his
profile implied that there shouldn't be a question) instead of
counting on blind faith.
If he is what he said he is, I don't want to miss out on seeing and
knowing him...
Any useful guidance/info would greatly be appreciated.
Thanks.
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puzzled wrote:
How do I check out whether the person whom I met online (through a
dating service) is what he said he is, i.e I have the name he gave me,
the city he lives. So I need the check followings:
1. First, his true identity has to be checked:Ppicture and name match;
age
would be good too (he must have gone to high school there too)
2. I need to check whether he is single or not; whether he is living
with/involved with a woman, i.e has a steady relationship. In
fact, I
wouldn't want to get involved at all if also is involved with any
woman in
non-steady relationship. That's for later check..
3. His occupation as he told me in the department of Homeland Security
Heh. I can see where you could suspect this to be the old "I'm with the
CIA/FBI etc."
Homeland Security covers a lot of agency functions. Very few, if any, of
them would justify him withholding information from you on the basis
that, "it's secret." (Real folks in secret work don't tell you it's
secret.) But, you say his agency voice mail identifies him when you call
the agency. If that is indeed their number, or if you can reach his
voice mail through the main agency number, there is such a person.
You *could* hire a private investigator. They subscribe to information
services that could, without field work, answer all of your questions,
except the one about his personal relationships. It shouldn't cost too
much. It's pretty simple. As to finding a reliable PI, ask a large law
firm if they can recommend one.
They can get legal records, drivers license, vehicle registration, the
names of people using his address for those things, credit rating, and a
lot more. How much it costs can depend on how wide you want to cast the
net. Heck - they'll mail every court clerk in the U.S. if you pay for
it. But really, it would seem that both of you should be able to open up
to each other, given the well-known problems with cyber-relationships.
He doesn't know about you, either.
If you want a PI's work to take the place of that, be prepared to pay a
lot of money to check out his life outside the legal/government/business
records. And you still won't really know, will you? The only sure way to
keep total peace of mind is to stay out of the game.
--
Gerald Clough
clough@texas.net
"Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."
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in article 1qkklv4vch2i8sffoi67f0rv0vjb50mml8@4ax.com, puzzled at
zamwater@yahoo.com wrote on 9/6/03 5:45 PM:
Almost all lawyers are listed by Martindale-Hubbell:
http://www.martindale.com/xp/Martindale/home.xml
You can make a name check on line, but can get more complete info. in the
Martindale Directory found in your local law library. Get a law librarian
to help you use it.
But I don't know the name of his work place. The work phone he gave
to me is a direct line. I have talked to him at his office phone three
time (I made the first call; the second and third were from him, all
during our inetractive cyber activity through yahoo messenger. The
first one - during semester break just before my last semester this
past summer - was the most prodcutive talk when he asked, at one
point, how I could afford to be in school, and not working. That made
me feel that he was genuine. I aksed him what kind of law he practised
and he answered me on that.) I called once at his cell and go a hold
of him but we didn't talk much.
As you say, you are a careful person. REASONABLE care is a good thing, but
something tells me that you may be worrying a bit too much here. After all,
you aren't going to make any commitments until you know the gentleman much
better.
Correct. I got attached to him abit through email communication; I was
holding onto this sweet talk fromt hose early days.
We reached to the point, as we were talking naughtily during an
interactive cyber session, where he was coming to my area to see me.
But, I complained (in email) a bit about his arrival time to my area
and so the plan didn't happen. My idea was to meet when there is day
light and meet at a very public place just to talk.
I couldn't blame him if he got too excited (from the interactive
cyber talk) and wanted to come and meet me at a private place the
first time but as a lawyer, no amount of excitement should have
blurred his thinking to understand why I would need to see him at a
public place first and make a decision how to proceed.
May be he has changed and now is only interseted in me for sex and
wants to make a trip only if he would get some for sure which he now
knows is a hopeless situation. May be that's why he got quiet. I don't
know.
Since I have never met anyone (for dating purpose) through online, I
asked other people's opinion about meeting someone online and engaging
in the cyber activity that I got involved with him. While one person
assured me that cyber reltionship is like offline relationship,
someone else sacred me to death, causing me to post what I did in this
thread.
I am cool now. I stay with my gut feeling (and what I observed) that
he is clean. If he isn't, I'd say he deserves an Oscar. I may never
find out. If that is the case, I am ok. I have cut off the online
relationship and do not plan to contact him. If he contacts me, I will
only proceed if he meets me at a public place and give me a chance to
get to know him like people do off line.
He has my home phone numebrs. Can he find out my address? I am not
renting this place. This is family owned.
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