Skip Locate: What Is A Skip Locate | From The Perspective Of A Portland Private Investigator

In the Private Investigation world we use words and give titles to things that the average Joe wouldn’t understand; for an example PI’s say “I need a Skip Locate done.”  Here in Portland, Oregon and across most of the United States, Skip Locate means simply, I need you to find someone for me.  Most often when a Law Office or another Private Investigator asks me to do a Skip Locate or a Skip then they are telling me to find someone who is not easily found.

I enjoy performing Skip Locates.  I’ve been asked to do Skip Locates on more people then I can remember.  I’ve Skipped people around the world.  I’ve hunted people all over the world.  For me, my success rate would be pretty high.  I enjoy finding people who try to hide.  Some people are easy to find and some are extremely difficult.  This area of Investigations is a combination of skill and luck, mostly skill.  When I started doing PI work and was asked to find someone, I put in hours and hours of work.  I don’t think a classroom can teach someone how to find difficult skips.  This area of Investigation is for those who have a talent.  As I’m writing this I’m remembering old Skip Locates I had done.  It puts a smile on my face because I still don’t know how I found some of the people I had to find.

An Example of a Skip Locate I Recently Performed Here in Portland, OR

One time I was contacted by an Investigator out of State.  He told me that he needed some help locating a guy, a bad guy, white collar criminal that was wanted in a few States.  The investigator didn’t have much for me to work with.  He had a photo, aliases, and believed the guy would be somewhere on the west coast.  The Private Investigator who was in the South East part of the U.S. heard through the grapevine that I was a good guy to get in contact with and was on the West Coast.  After quite a lot of thinking about who this guy or subject was and after putting together a profile, I started the Skip.  I ended up finding his twin brother’s ex-wife who was able to give a lot of insight into my subject.  She then helped me by setting up her ex-husband and I was able to speak with him.  At first, the brother of my subject was not willing to help but he knew that if he didn’t help me find his brother then his brother’s problems would become a problem for him.   These brothers were twins and local law enforcement would have to spend a lot of time to make sure he was not the fugitive wanted on the other side of the Country.  He eventually ended up helping me and said that his brother lived 30 minutes drive-time away.  He called up his brother and told him that they needed to meet up for coffee and talk about his ex-wife.  The twin brother/ now asset and I drove to the coffee shop.  The brother pointed out the man I was looking for from the car we where in.  My subject was sitting at a table in the coffee house.  My luck then became even better when I noticed three law enforcement officers eating lunch at a deli next door.  I informed the Officers of the situation and let them deal with taking my subject into custody.

Skip Locates are not the easiest thing to do, it requires time and patency.  A Skip locates can be very dangerous and should be done by people who have training and understand the risks involved.