Background check vs surveillance — triaging at intake

The two most common PI case types — background check and surveillance — sometimes get conflated at intake. A caller asks for "a background check on my new business partner," and the actual scope they have in mind is closer to surveillance ("I want you to watch what they do for a couple weeks"). Or vice versa — a caller asks for "surveillance" when what they need is records-based research that doesn't require any field work.

Mismatched scope at intake leads to misquoted retainers, missed deliverable expectations, and engagements that end badly even when the investigator did the right work. This post is about the triage questions that get the scope right at the front door.

The operational difference

Background investigation is records-based. The investigator pulls and assembles public records — criminal history, civil filings, employment, education, residency, professional licensing, sometimes social-media presence. The deliverable is a written report. The work is typically billable in fixed packages.

Surveillance is field-based. The investigator observes the subject's activities over a defined time window — physical surveillance, photographic documentation, pattern-of-life observation. The deliverable is typically a chronological log with photographic or video evidence. The work is typically billable by the hour or by the day.

The two case types have different cost structures, different timelines, different legal-jurisdictional considerations, and different deliverables. Quoting a "background check" price for what the client expected to be surveillance — or vice versa — leads to one of two bad outcomes. The investigator under-quotes and loses money on the engagement. Or the investigator over-quotes and loses the engagement.

The triage questions

A clean triage at intake comes from three questions:

1. What do you want to know?

The answer falls into one of two buckets:

• Static information. Who is this person? What's their history? Have they been convicted of something? Do they own businesses? — These are background-investigation questions, answerable from records.
• Dynamic information. What are they doing right now? Where do they go? Who do they meet with? — These are surveillance questions, answerable only from observation.

If the caller's answer is mixed (some static, some dynamic), the engagement is mixed — and the investigator needs to be clear with the caller about which parts are background and which are surveillance.

2. Are you trying to verify what someone has told you, or discover something they haven't?

Verification-of-claims work is usually background. The caller has been told the subject was an executive at company X, lived in state Y, has no criminal history — and they want it verified. The investigator pulls records and confirms or refutes.

Discovery work is more often surveillance, or a combination. The caller suspects the subject is doing something they haven't disclosed. The records may or may not surface it; the field work might.

3. What's the deliverable you're picturing?

This is the question most intake scripts skip, and it's often the most clarifying. "When you imagine getting our report, what does it look like?"

• "A written summary I can share with my attorney." → background.
• "Photographs and a log of where they went." → surveillance.
• "Both — a summary and any evidence." → mixed engagement.

The caller's answer often surfaces the misalignment between their stated case type and what they actually want.

What each case type needs at intake

Background investigation intake captures:

• Subject identifiers (full name, aliases, DOB, last known address, last known employer).
• The specific records categories of interest (criminal, civil, professional, financial — though financial requires care given GLBA limits).
• The purpose of the investigation (verification, due diligence, hiring decision, etc.).
• The jurisdiction the subject has ties to (drives which courts and records databases the investigator searches).
• Any documents the caller already has (resumes, prior reports, application materials).

Surveillance intake captures:

• Subject identifiers (name, photograph or description, vehicle if known).
• The locations the surveillance would cover (home, workplace, other).
• The pattern the caller suspects (specific days, specific times, specific behaviors).
• The jurisdiction the surveillance would occur in (drives licensing and legal-authority considerations).
• The intended use of the evidence (litigation, personal, employment, etc.).
• The caller's relationship to the subject and the legal basis for the surveillance.

The intake script branches on the case-type answer and captures the relevant set. Both branches converge on the standard intake elements — caller identity, callback preferences, conflict-check identifiers, purpose flags.

What the investigator sees on the casefile

Indagor writes the casefile with the case type as a top-level field and a clear scope summary at the top of the record:

CASE TYPE: Background (with possible surveillance component)
PRIMARY SCOPE: verification of subject's employment history and any civil filings
SECONDARY SCOPE (caller mentioned, not yet committed): occasional observation if records inconclusive
JURISDICTION: TX (primary), FL (subject has prior residence)
PURPOSE: due diligence for a business partnership
CONFLICT CHECK: no match (1,247 cases searched)
[full intake transcript]

The investigator sees the primary scope and the possible secondary component immediately, and can scope the callback conversation accordingly.

Where the two case types overlap

Some engagements genuinely require both — a background check that establishes the subject's profile, followed by surveillance to verify ongoing activity. The intake should accommodate this without forcing the caller to pick one or the other artificially. A "mixed" case-type flag is fine. The investigator scopes the proportions on the callback.

What this changes for the firm

A firm whose intake gets the case-type triage right ends up with engagements that match what the client actually wanted. Fewer mid-engagement scope changes. Fewer disputed invoices. Fewer cases where the deliverable surprises the client. The investigator's time is spent on the case the firm signed up for, not on relitigating what the case was supposed to be.

Indagor's intake branches by case type and surfaces scope mismatches before the retainer conversation. Start your agency at indagor.com.