HOUSTON – Nancy Craig, the mother of 30-year-old Tiffany McAllister said she’ll walk to the ends of the earth to find her missing daughter.  “I thought God sent this man to me to help us,” Craig said.


This is a tragic story made worse by a fake investigator

As a professional Investigative Agency, we are always on the lookout for “un-licensed” people and will actively make a report and do a follow up to make sure this activity stops.

The complete story can be read here:


The heartbroken Florida mother said “If he had asked for my soul, I would’ve sent it to him.”

She said she got a Facebook message from a random stranger, offering to help find her daughter, who has been missing for three weeks.

Houston MIssing Girl

“It was, like ‘I will have her in 24 hours,'” Ms. Craig said.

The man claimed to be a private investigator.

“He told me everything that I wanted to hear,” Craig said.

He said he’d find her daughter, and he’d do it for free.

“I’m so vulnerable, and I think he preyed on that. He knew,” Craig said.

But his promises quickly faded.

“He needed $2,000 for this. He needed a car,” Craig said.

The family did everything he asked, and trusted every word he said.

But in the end, they learned the truth. “He scammed us, plain and simple. He just scammed us,” Craig said. A family broken at its lowest point is now out more than $1,000 because they wanted a con man’s lies to be true.


If you EVER need to hire a Private Investigator, here is what you need to know…

In Florida, All Private Investigators are required to be licensed. In fact, they need TWO licenses. Here is how it works…  To hire an investigator, you must first contact the licensed Agency. That is who you actually hire. The Agency will then assign an investigator to work your case.

All Agencies have a license number that starts with “A”. All investigators have a license that starts with “C” (or “CC” in they are in training.) All money that you pay is paid to the Agency, not the investigator.

Florida also requires that every Private Investigator have identification for the agency they work for, and their original Florida issued license (C or CC License) Both of these documents will contain a photo. Having just a business card is not enough – they MUST have both forms of ID on them while working. Be sure to check the expiration dates.

Also, Florida requires that the license be displayed on websites and business cards. You will notice that we display our agency license on every page of our site.

To verify Licenses use the below links:

Investigator Agency License

Private Investigator License

To file a complaint, use this link.   (All Private Investigator licenses are regulated by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.)

Always go with your gut feeling. You must feel comfortable with anyone that you hire. Ask questions, find out exactly what they can do and how much it will cost. Yeah, about costs….  It is very hard to quote and exact price for an investigation. Every case is different and sometimes the plan of action will change.  It’s just the nature of the work we do. Even the hourly rate can change depending on what is being done. As an example, you would not expect to pay the same rate for vehicle surveillance as you would for pulling court records.  What we have always done is to keep our clients informed as the investigation progresses and be as cost effective as possible to get the job done right.

Most people never have had to hire an investigator in their lifetime. And that’s a good thing. But if you find yourself in need, we hope that it works out for you in a positive way. If you ever have questions, we are available to talk to you anytime. We never charge for that. We have even been known to buy a cup of coffee and chat for awhile. We are here to help and we take pride in the services that we offer…

Alpha Agency supports VISTE

Alpha Agency is pleased to announce that we support our local Viste organization

Viste provides support for seniors all over the country and we are proud to be able to assist our local Viste Organization right here in Lakeland, Florida.

They provide a wide range of necessary services to our elderly every day. Things like transportation, hot meals, birthdays, and even personal care boxes are given to hundreds of local people in need.

Alpha Agency Giving Back

Alpha Agency is proud to be able to provide free services to help them achieve their mission in our community. They do a fantastic job in the Polk County area.

 

 VISTE’s mission is to enable the frail elderly to remain safely and independently in their own homes.

The needs are great, but together we are greater than the need.

VISTE’s inaugural Serve a Senior campaign was a huge success! Twelve teams raised almost $30,000 for VISTE’s frail, elderly clients.

It has been such an honor to share their stories with the community. Each one of them has their own connection to VISTE. Those connections are like family, and include volunteers who share their joy for giving with each client they encounter.

If you would like to help out by being a volunteer for VISTE, it’s rewarding in so many ways…

Becoming a volunteer at VISTE is simple: attend one of our monthly Volunteer Orientations, and our Volunteer Coordinator will find the best fit for you. We’ll start with an overview of our many programs, a tour of our facilities, and then we’ll discuss volunteer opportunities.

There’s always something happening at VISTE, and our elderly clients need you! Your time will be put to good use whether you are a student, retired person, group, organization, club, or an individual with talents to share. We welcome new ideas and have been known to implement project ideas brought to the table by our own volunteers.

Contact VISTE at Viste.org for more information. You will be glad you did!

More and more these days, people are installing Dash Cams in their vehicles. Personally, I think it is a great idea. The popularity started in other countries where they have a lot more fake accidents going on. A common practice is for a person to wave down an approaching vehicle and then as it slows down, they jump on the hood as if they were struck by the vehicle. YouTube has some really funny clips about this activity.  This one is funny!

Rexing V1N Dash Cam

Back to the real world…  Having a Dash Cam on your vehicle is a good idea. Hopefully you will never “need” it, but when you do it can be a valuable tool. Here are some thoughts to consider before you  order one…

If you don’t know much about these things, you might be asking yourself “What exactly is a “Dash Cam”?  Well, you can find out more here.

Here are a few things to consider before you invest in one of these devices. Our agency spent a lot of time evaluating them before we purchased our Rexing V1N units. So far, they work very well and have become a valuable tool for us.

Price

You can get one for about $45.00 but it won’t be a keeper. A good quality one will cost right at a hundred dollars, and be well worth the investment. Some will run you up around $250 but I don’t see why you would need to spend that much after looking at all the specs. After all, the specs are all that matters really.

Features

What these things do is record your movement while you drive. Simple really. What you want to have is a unit that powers on when you start the car and starts recording without having to press buttons. You want to have a good amount of memory in the unit so it will record at least a days worth of driving. And, it should be able to loop over old data if the memory card gets full. Being able to replace the memory card without much hassle is a plus.

Most units will allow you to set the resolution of the video. I like to try and get the best picture possible, so I set mine at the highest quality.  I also set the record segments to 5 or 10 minutes. If you are going to capture a drive along the beach, a higher segment time means less video to stitch together. Keep in mind that these units won’t be able to capture license plate tags at any great distance or if a vehicle passes you by. If you can read the plate yourself, so can the camera, but that’s about it.

Most good units will allow you to record audio too. This can come in handy at times.

You will also see that some units can record  from a rear camera as well as the front. This is done by a picture in picture feature on most models, and has it’s drawbacks. The rear camera is normally a lower resolution camera. I think a rear camera is a great idea, and the best way to do this is to just put another unit back there.  Then you have both ends of the vehicle covered nicely with good quality all the way around.

Another nice feature is the ability to park your car and have a sensor that will turn it on if your vehicle is hit or damaged. Tis is called a “Parking Feature” and is very handy to have if you park on the street.

Our Agency uses these devices all the time.

The units that we have chosen for our investigator vehicles is from Rexing. Currently, we have two such units in each vehicle – one in the front and one in the rear. Rexing has a nice one that has a night vision feature that helps with low light conditions – something that we like a lot.

While on cases, we use the audio record feature and record notes as we work the case. It’s a lot better than any other method as it keeps your hands totally free for the important things like drinking coffee.