The Expert Podcast

In this video we're going to talk about how to get the ownership information or contact information for a person or company that is using a po box or a post office box now these are three methods that are very frequently used for investigations or skip tracing if you have questions or comments about this put them in the section below in addition if you have additional questions about doing searching for a person's location let us know and we'll make that an additional video in the future.

The reason for possibly needing the identity or the location of a party using a po box is many times a fraudster or a defendant or a debtor can hide behind using a po box so you don't know their actual physical location you don't know where they're living the most important thing you need to know for things like service of process or maybe sending certified letter is where the person puts their head down at night where they sleep at night obviously you don't sleep in a po box.

Now make sure when you're using any of these methods that you're using them legally get good legal advice about when you can and can't do some of these things not every method can be used in every case there's privacy laws there's gram leads biliac laws there's all kind of laws in even your state that may apply to this so make sure you get good legal advice from an attorney before you start taking action about discovering private information on an individual or corporation but here are three methods that can be used for skip tracing or background checks.

Number one is you can file this form with the postmaster in the jurisdiction where the post office is being held this is a request for box holder information and you'll put the box holder name and address here you put the capacity of the requester meaning that are you a process server attorney or you just a party representing yourself and you're going to put the statute of regulation which applies in this case also the name of other parties that are involved with the conflict the court in which the case has heard or will be heard again this is something where its pre-litigation request is authorized by this form if you do have a docket you put in this form and also the capacity of the individual are they a defendant in the case are they a witness in the case are they an asset holder are they a trustee for information records or assets.
Be aware that when you file a form like this it tells you in big letters you can't submit false information to get private details from the postmaster it could be a crime so make sure that you're doing it correctly then you put your signature and your name and address at the bottom again this is submitted directly to the postmaster in the jurisdiction where the post office box is being held.

Option number two and this is used very frequently you got to make sure you do it legally and you're not breaking any laws by using this method is you will mail to the post office box a tracking device gps air tag tile something that is a tracking device normally the person with the post office box will bring their mail home bring it to where they maybe have an office if you time the mailing so that it gets there when they're more likely to go home maybe on a friday so they're going to go on a weekend or maybe get there on a saturday they're probably not going to go to their office on a saturday that may be more likely to get that information on the other hand you may decide you want to find out where their office is located so you're going to mail it during the week.

Sometimes mail is actually forwarded from a post office or even a private mailbox if somebody has a ups store mailbox or some other private mailbox many times the subject will not physically go to the mailbox they'll forward that mail on a regular basis so you can file that air tag wherever it goes again make sure you're not breaking any laws any privacy laws when you do this the location of the person is most likely going to be their residence.

Now we've even had clients that wanted to make sure that the discovery of that gps device wasn't made prematurely so if you open an envelope and you see an air tag you might throw it away if you maybe go to the post office and open all your mail at the post office counter you're not going to bring your air tag home so they'll put it inside of some other item that's not easily discovered and that way the air tag or the gps device or whatever it is will most likely make it to the final destination that you want to discover the address of the house the residence the office so that's option number two.

Option number three and this is used many times is to send a warranty card so if a person you know has some type of product a certain vehicle a certain piece of equipment maybe something that's not even directly owned if you send a warranty card where they'll return that warranty card with their address maybe it's a delivery of an item that needs physical delivery like a truck delivery and they have to fill in the address where they want that warranty to be activated or the delivery address this requires action from the defendant from the subject they have to fill out the card so you have to structure the wording of that very carefully you don't want to make false statements in order to get private information that could be considered pre-texting.

But if you have a product that you're shipping or if you have a product that has a warranty and you structure the wording to where you can put right in the address po box is not accepted how many times have you seen that many times it'll say po box is not accepted you put that on your return form make sure it has postage on it so that way there's no reason for them not to send it make sure there's an incentive it extends your warranty it gives you more product we'll send you an accessory whatever the case might be sometimes these incentives are what gets the subject better or defendant to send back that card with the address that's not a post office box.

The last method is to use an electronic contact to ping the location of the party so if you send a rebate form if you send a qr code you send something on a printed document to the po box where they have to scan it enter it maybe even go to a website make up your own website you can register a domain name for ten dollars host it for ten dollars a month and you put a website that has some reason to go there you send out a postcard that says hey go to this website xyz.com to get more information about x whatever you think that subject is going to be interested in you probably know more about that subject than anybody else does so maybe if they're into a certain hobby they're into a certain um social events you're gonna put a website where they get information about that.

When they go to the website you monitor the server logs the server traffic on that website to find out the geolocation of the i p address where they visited from again it requires a physical response and action from that debtor but if you word the mailing correctly given an incentive to do it doesn't cost them any money they don't have to fill anything out the action for this is actually easier than returning a form because they don't have to write anything down they can just go to their computer go to a website scan a qr code and it gives you the geolocation of that person.

Now if they go on if they're on their phone and they're in their car it's not going to help you but again you can a word the structure of that message to make it more likely that they're going to do it from a home pc maybe you even make the website almost unreadable from a phone pc or a mobile device phone browser mobile device you make it so that the pictures are too large or it's not formatted correctly on a mobile device so they have to go to their home pc to see what it is you're talking about again it's all about the wording and the structure.

Can't say it enough make sure it's legal make sure your purposes are legal make sure you're not breaking any rules laws if you're in a litigation you might also want to check with your attorney to make sure you're not contacting a representative party improperly but these are all methods that can be used based on your scenario to find out the physical location of a person that's hiding behind apo box again if you have questions or other details put them in the comments we'll answer those in future videos.