Hi all.  We just want you to know that you can learn more about our OmniTrace staff and services by visiting our Twitter and Facebook pages:

• OmniTrace On FaceBook
• OmniTrace On Twitter – Dana Betz
• OmniTrace On Twitter – Dave Betz

And if you happen to be visiting Florida (or are a Florida resident), please come and meet with us at our offices.  Take a tour of our facility and talk with our OmniTrace Search Consultants and Private Investigators.  Call us at 1-888-965-6696 or email us for directions.   

The streets of Port-au-Prince resembled grainy black-and-white newsreels from World War II that showed the rubble of bombed-out houses in Berlin and London. The devastation was wide and often horrific.

OmniTrace will be donating a portion of our fee for each new search to the victims, as well as launching a food drive.  We’re still formulating our charitable program and will provide additional details shortly.

In the meantime, please say a prayer for the victims and their families who have been affected by this terrible event.

OmniTrace Staff

Video By Fredo

Please leave a comment if you have any questions for Dave.  You can also email Dave at info@omnitrace.com or call him toll free at 1-888-965-6696.

Here is a post about  OmniTrace search methods from our youngest and perhaps most enthusiastic OmniTrace Private Investigator:

By Rachel Weiss

Hello my name is Rachel Weiss, and I am originally from Boston, Massachusetts, the home of the Boston Red Sox.  I come from a family that is made up of a set of fraternal twins, whom are my brother and sister, my mother and father, and me.  I recently graduated last year from college with a Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Psychology.  In my spare time I love to enjoy the outdoors, whether it is going to the beach, or just being outside walking around somewhere.  A big part of me is definitely still a homebody, and I love spending time with my family as much as I can.  

One of the things I love about my job is using search methods to reunite people with their lost loves,  long lost family members or friends, which is very rewarding.  For as long as I can remember I have loved helping people in every way that I possibly can.  I currently work at OmniTrace as one of the Private Investigators that does research on the many different searches we receive.  Here is one of them and the search methods I used:

Locating a lost love you were once involved is definitely a heart felt process.

One specific case was near and dear to my heart.  On the 30^thday of March a man named Steve (we’ll protect Steve’s confidentiality by not providing his last name) called  and spoke with Barbara, one of our search consultants here at Omnitrace.  Barbara took down all the essential information that Steve had on the lost love that he was searching for.  This information included the first and last name of the women,  and a possible date of birth that he thought belonged to her.  Another key piece of information that was given for the women was a last known partial address (in New York State) where she once lived in the year 1967.  There were two other key pieces of information that Steve provided to Barbara:  the names of the women’s father and sister.  (The first name of Steve’s lost love is Tanya.  We’ll protect Tanya’s confidentiality by not providing her last name.)

Barbara then provided me the details of this new search.  The first step I took in this search was to locate all the Tanyas, nationwide that happened to be in the age range that Steve provided to us, which was 1942-1945.  This in turn allowed me to correlate a list of all Tanyas in that age range nationwide.  I located all current whereabouts of these Tanyas and made contact with all of them.  I discovered that none of these women were the correct Tanya, which allowed me to eliminate all of them and move on with my search.

The next step I took in this search was to locate all Vincent ______nationwide, since that was the name that Steve gave Barbara for Tanya’s father.  So,  I located only one Vincent _______that had connections to New York, and he had unfortunately passed away.  However, I was able to locate a relative of his, and made contact with this person.

A few days went by and I received a call back from the relative of the Vincent that I located.  I spoke with him on the phone for quiet a few minutes and I told him who I was looking for, and I confirmed with him that he was indeed the brother of Tanya that I had been looking for.  I asked the brother to have Tanya please get in contact with me so that I can speak with her myself and figure out if she would like contact with my client.  This is usually the correct protocol that we take when we have a client that is searching for an old girlfriend and/or old boyfriend.

The next day I received a call from Tanya herself, whom is the subject that I have been searching for.  I spoke with her for awhile on the phone and she told me she actually was hoping that the person that was looking for her was indeed our client.  So once it was confirmed that I located the correct person, I got in contact with the Steve, and shared the great news with him and he was so happy!

After speaking on the phone with Tanya, Steve called me to give me an update to let me know how things were going, and he told me that Tanya sent him some pictures over email. He then emailed me an update, and stated that “you have started me on an adventure which may never end, and I thank you for your efficiency in finding her.  I will play it out to the best of my ability, and will keep you informed”.

A few days after that first email Steve sent another email to update me on how things were going with Toya and himself.  The client said, “My relationship w/ Tanya has gotten very warm.  I don’t know where this could ever go since I am married.  I have no choice but to follow the path, I respect & love her terribly & we retrieved so much time of so long ago.  An amazing experience.  We never forgot that long ago time.  Thank you for finding her.  She is a terrific person.”

I did receive one last email from Steve a week after the other two emails, and it was a little disappointing to hear but understandable.

 “It seems I became a bit passionate” which Tanya said, “I appreciate your passion re: our relationship,” then morphed into the fact that I made her uncomfortable, since I as a writer waxed poetic which is my way.  “For me it means termination, which was my response.  Thanks for all you did in finding her.  I no longer wish to communicate with her, & her last e-mail was cutting.  On to better things.  It was a 42 yr. odyssey.”

So overall, the search methods I used for Steve’s lost love were successful and it left the client with both happiness and sadness at the same time.  This does happen quiet often with searches, that the client is searching for a long lost love from many years ago, as the client never knows where the other person is in their life right now which is sometimes disappointing.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions about the search methods used to reunite Steve and Tanya.

Source:  ABC News
By By KI MAE HEUSSNER

You can run and you can hide.

But, especially in the digital age, do you have what it takes to disappear?

In a contest hatched by Wired magazine, writer Evan Ratliff tried to see if he could fly below the radar for 30 days with a bounty over his head.

Starting Aug. 15, he traveled the continental United States without revealing his location to a soul on the planet. Wired offered $5,000 to anyone who could find him before the time ran out, but Ratliff would pocket $3,000 if he survived the month incognito.

With just one week to go, it looked like Ratliff might outsmart the hundreds — maybe thousands — of hi-tech sleuths who had joined the hunt.

But, on Tuesday, on his way to pick up some pizza, he was nabbed in New Orleans.

“I actually thought that I’d make it back to New York. So much so that I had plans,” said the New York-based writer. “I had already plotted out what I’d do. I hadn’t quit trying. I really thought that I was going to make it.”…

To read the complete article:  Click Here

Our expertise is finding people, their assets, and their background information.   We know where to look, who to call, and what to say to find anyone’s personal information.  Who better to help you avoid criminal identity theft?  That’s the reason for this post. 

Although consumers have become more well informed at avoiding criminal identity theft, identity theft crooks are constantly updating their methods to steal credit cards, open bank accounts, obtain loans, etc. 

Here are ways you can avoid criminal identity theft:

• Carefully review your bank and credit card statements for unusual activity and make sure all your transactions match your statements.  Catching  an unauthorized transaction quickly will save you time and money, and notifying your bank within two days limits your liability to only $50.00.   
• If one of your bank or credit card statements does not arrive on schedule, notify the appropriate security department.  An identity thief might have your statement.
• Use ATM cards that carry the Visa or MasterCard label.  Your liability is limited to $50.00, no matter how long it takes for you to report criminal identity theft. 
• More easily avoid criminal identity theft by receiving your financial statements online.  This gives an identity thief  less opportunity to steal your hardcopy statements before and after you receive them.   If you need to use snail mail, shred personal and financial documents you place in the garbage.
• When conducting online financial and personal transactions, avoid criminal identity theft by changing your passwords often, and avoid easy to deciper passwords (e.g., birthdates, people’s names, dictionary words, license plate numbers, song names, words from poems, etc.). 
• Avoid criminal identity theft, by using up-to-date spam software and virus protection.  Install a firewall if possible. 
• Avoid providing personal information to anyone who telephones you.  This might seem obvious, but there are savvy identity thieves who are experts at pretexting and soliciting information by phone. 

Lastly, for a small fee, OmniTrace can run a background search on you to determine any signs of criminal identity theft.   If you are interested, please give us a call at:  1-888-965-6696 or email us at: info@omnitrace.com.

Please leave a comment with any questions or advice you may have about criminal identity theft.

OmniTrace

Here’s what MTV says about their documentary series:

“MTV’s Emmy-nominated documentary series True Life, explores remarkable real-life stories of young people and the extraordinary subcultures they inhabit.  Crosstown Media, a production company that produces many of the True Life episodes – is currently accepting submissions for their latest episode – I’m Looking For My Child.

Having lost contact with a loved one is a difficult situation for anybody – and when that loved one is their own child, that feeling of loss and desire to connect (or reconnect) must be significantly greater.  True Life wants to explore what it’s like for a young adult who desperately wants to unite (or reunite) with their long-lost child…and we want to document the journey of that person trying to make their dream come true.

True Life takes an intimate and unobtrusive approach to their storytelling.  The entire production crew consists of just one person – a producer with a camera…that’s it.  We capture the story over the course of approximately two months.  Because True Life is a pure documentary series, we are not permitted to aid, assist, or finance anyone’s search.  That’s why we are looking for self-sufficent adults (approximately 18-28) who plan to be very aggressive with their search for their child this summer – and have the means to do so…” 

If you have lost contact with your child for any reason, and are desperate to have your child back in your life, please email OmniTrace  at info@omnitrace.com.  Please mention MTV’s True Life in the subject line of your email.

You can also call us toll free at:  888-965-6696.

There you can follow Dave–The People Search Expert– in real time as he reunites birth families, finds missing persons, traces dead beat dads, tracks down witnesses for important legal cases, locates missing clinical trial patients, tracks down heirs to large estates and complains about his broken Sony Bravia TV set.  (The list goes on and on   ). 

Perhaps more important to you, Dave will be tweeting about how you can win a FREE Birth Parent Search valued at $1295.00!

And of course, you can write Dave on Twitter about your search.  He’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Twitter is a social networking platform that allows people to connect with friends, family and professional services like OmniTrace.  Sign up for free and start following Dave today.

Today we want to introduce Sheila Knies, who is a member of our Search Consultant Department.  We asked Sheila to provide a little background information about herself:

“Sheila Knies, a former Pan Am flight attendant, has a BA degree in Spanish and a Masters degree in Bicultural-Bilingual Education.  She has been married for 25 years and has two children, both in their early 20s. 

Her interest in adoption searches began when her daughter’s closest friend asked her to help locate her birth mother years ago.  She searched for six years and found out how impossible these searches were to do.  Sheila was thrilled when she found OmniTrace.  It was wonderful to discover a company whose main focus was to reunite families.  Wanting to assist in this goal, she applied for the position of Adoption Search Consultant and presently works in that position to this day.”

In future posts, we’ll introduce other members of our OmniTrace staff.  Please call or write us with any questions you may have.  Sheila and our other search consultants would love to hear from you!

Toll Free 1-888-965-6696

Email:  info@omnitrace.com