One of the first descriptions of a sociopath is that they’re prolific liars. But, in this day and age, it’s not so easy to get away with outlandish stories. During the love bombing phase, the sociopath will paint a picture of how successful they are, the awards they’ve achieved, the homes they own, and the list goes on. Thankfully, with a little due diligence and a knack for utilizing the Web, women can find out fairly quickly what is truth and what is absolute BULLSHIT!
With more than a decade dealing with Ben, we’ve managed to school ourselves on how to get to the bottom of almost any crazy story that might be told. In fact, that is why we called ourselves ‘Ex-Wives Undercover,’ because of the sheer necessity to discover the truth. Now, some of these tips you might already know, but hopefully, there will be a few that will help should you need them in the future.
FREE
Social Media:
If you can’t find anything by a simple social media search you’ve got a problem. There should be, at a minimum, a Facebook and/or a LinkedIn account.
If they’ve given you a real name, you may be able to locate a family member with the same last name. You’d be surprised at how much information is open to the public and not made private. Look at their friend list if it’s available. You might find his social media profile there [if they go by a nickname or initials, that’s a BIG red flag]! If not, note all the other family members and scope their pages and photos (take notice of tagging). Often, you’ll find pics of them with an ex, current wife or child that you didn’t know about! Screenshot everything in case you need it down the line. If they make their profile private, you’re screwed.
If the family member or friend has a closed profile, usually they’ll have at least a profile photo or cover image public. Look at the people that liked and/or commented. This will usually be people they’re close friends with and might have useful information on their pages.
Another workaround is searching by phone number or email. Most people don’t realize that you can opt out. So, if he is trying to be sly and has a random dog for his profile pic, you can verify it’s him if it’s tied to his phone number or email. Take notice of the pages he follows – usually it will be a sports team or something that will confirm you have the right guy, in the right city.
General Web Search:
Next up, do a general web search with the name they’ve given to you and while you’re at it, set up a Google alert. Be sure to put the name in quotation marks to make the search even more specific – e.g., “Ben Jamison”
You can do any number of searches to narrow it down – name + city, name + job, name + ex-wife. Don’t forget to search the username he used in his dating profile. Often times people will use the same one for everything [e.g., Netflix account username]. On that note, NEVER delete your dating profile. You can deactivate, but by keeping it you can go back and see if he’s been online recently because you’re still technically connected [unless he’s good and proactively deletes you once you’re dating]. That means he’s still trolling for women. You can also check to see if he’s updated his dating profile. It doesn’t hurt to periodically go on and scroll through dating apps to see if he’s opened a new account.
If there is specific info that he’s told you that would be public info, be sure to validate it. For instance, Ben said he was a champion MMA fighter, yet Amber couldn’t find anything. Big red flag! He also said Athena was a cheerleader for the Seattle Seahawks…that was easily disputed doing a simple Google search. Now, it’s one thing to fib to try and impress a girl but it’s another to begin a pattern of lying. Don’t rationalize this behavior and make excuses. Small lies turn into big lies.
If you’ve identified from your social media search a few close family members, Google them too! You will be able to gather a lot of info that may or may not line up with what your man is telling you. For instance, the text messages from Avery [that Ben created to give Amber to prove he wasn’t cheating] asked that he send a photo of himself and Sydney to give to her parents – meaning they were both alive and well. However, after doing a Google search, Amber discovered a hole in the story…Avery’s father had passed away a year prior! His obituary was in the newspaper from their hometown.
To the right is a copy of that text message between Avery and Ben.
This is a perfect example of paying attention to detail.
Ben told Amber that he had deleted the text thread between himself and Avery but that he’d gone to T-Mobile (his phone carrier) to get copies of everything.
If you look closely, what he provided is NOT a typical text thread from phone to phone – with blue and green message bubbles – but rather using WhatsApp, a common instant messaging app that men frequently use to cheat. Also, you should know that phone carriers CANNOT print off an actual text thread to give you. The best they can offer is a copy of the time stamps and phone numbers of the incoming and outgoing text messages for the time frame you have requested.
Nice try Ben!
Free Image Search:
If he’s sent you any photos whatsoever, do a reverse search on them to be sure they’re real. This is especially important if you haven’t met them yet.
Location:
While it’s not legal to secretly track someone, there are a couple of tricks up our sleeve. The first is a family organization app that has a location tracker built within it. If you can sweet-talk your honey into joining you on the app, they’re automatically opted into this feature unless they manually go in and turn it off. The ones we recommend are Family Organizer, Family Wall, and Life360.
Hiding Spots:
If they’re having an affair, most likely there is a) another phone [or two or three] or b) they’re using a burner phone app. Common hiding spots include their car console, in dresser drawers, on top of refrigerators that are high and out of reach, out in the garage, or in boxes under the bed – easy to get to but out of sight. If they don’t have another physical phone, they’re either using things like WhatsApp, Google Voice, or Line2 to communicate. This is a great article that talks about secret apps that cheaters use.
Have you noticed he never has mail come to your home? He’s hiding it. Ben kept everything in his car [the trunk specifically], but there is a possibility they could have gotten a PO Box. If you do find his mail stash, write down the names or take a photo of the sender on the outside of the envelope. Even though it’s not ok to open other people’s mail, you can at least see where it’s from and that is more information than you had before.
One of the best pieces of advice is to keep your eyes and ears open! Jot down and keep notes on EVERYTHING that they’ve told you. Did he say he owned homes in multiple cities? Was he a former professional athlete? Never married, no kids with lots of money?
These details that they’re throwing out can be easily verified with a little leg work.
- Property records are public information. Almost everything is digitized these days, so if you know what state and county the home is located in, you can go to the website and search by name for free. You may have to create an account.
- Bankruptcy records are public information. It never hurts to double-check bankruptcy records. There is a government website called PACER [Public Access to Court Electronic Records], where you can find this info with a basic name search. It also has the option to search other records from the following courts – appellate, civil, criminal, and multidistrict.
- Business records are public information. Go to the Secretary of State website and do a Corporation & Business Entity Search. For example, here is the one we found multiple businesses in Washington State that Ben created using his mother’s name.
- Child support. This one is a bit tricky, but if you suspect your BF/Husband fathered a child, you can call the State Department of Human & Health Services. They are NOT allowed to provide any detail, but you can simply ask the question, “Is there an open/active child support account associated with [fill in the name or social security number] and they will oblige with a yes or no.
- Professional Organizations. Many men like to say they’re lawyers, doctors, or high-level professionals. But, with that comes licensing requirements, which happen to be public records. Don’t take their word at face value. Don’t just trust a LinkedIn account. Look them up!
- Education. This is another area that is very often lied about. It only takes five minutes to call and verify. Most college registrars will confirm dates of attendance and graduation, as well as degrees awarded and majors, upon request. Not familiar with the school, you can quickly check to see if the school is accredited.
- Court records. Every state is different, but most have everything digitized and available online. If not, there might be a small fee to request the records. Make sure you check all courts – civil and superior at both the state and county level. Don’t forget the police stations! For a very small fee, you can request all cases pertaining to your man. If you have the name of his ex, it doesn’t hurt to pull police reports for them as well to see if they reported anything having to do with your boyfriend/husband.
- Military records. Is he claiming to be a war hero? Probably not. Be sure to verify it here.
It’s also wise to search the United States Department of Justice Sex Offender website. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll have a fully functioning app to check for domestic violence offenders as well! Stay tuned…
PAID
Once you’ve exhausted your free methods of researching someone, it’s time to consider the paid options.
Start with a basic online background search…it’s not comprehensive, but it’s a good start. It’ll give you names of relatives, associates, wives/girlfriends, roommates and so much more. Our favorites,
Truthfinder.com (subscription but usually they give you a week free so be sure to cancel before then)
Beenverified.com
Peoplefinder.com
Check for aliases because they often use these for social media, dating sites, etc. For instance, Ben would use ‘Bigguns1’ for literally everything, from passwords to dating sites. Are there different middle initials? Jot them down. This means they’ve used multiple names.
Be sure to reverse-search any emails they’ve given you to see what name is registered to them. We actually found out that Ben created an email on behalf of his female cousin.
Hire a private investigator. When all else fails, you can hire someone to investigate the man in question even further. First and foremost, it’s important to hire someone who is experienced and licensed. Each state has its own requirements. There are many questions about what they can and can’t do, and we found a great article that explains this further.
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