In movies, people hire private detectives all the time to catch cheating spouses or find missing people. In real life, this happens, but they are also hired by corporate clients to investigate competitors, clients, and even their own employees for a variety of reasons. Most of the time, it's probably pretty standard stuff; maybe there's a fear of corporate espionage or someone stealing. But sometimes, the reasons can be almost unbelievable.
10. General Motors Hired Detectives to Discredit Ralph Nader
In 1965, Ralph Nader wrote a book called Unsafe at Any Speed, which accused the auto industry of putting profits before safety and accused them of knowingly putting people at risk in unsafe vehicles. One of his main targets was General Motors' Chevy Corsair, and the company was not happy.
In response, General Motors hired private investigators to tail Nader and find evidence of anything they could use to discredit him, even if it meant fabricating that evidence. At first, they tried to seduce with a prostitute, but he refused her. Later they tried to discredit him by suggesting that he is homosexual , harassing his neighbors and others with leading questions about his sexual orientation at a time when homosexuality was considered completely discreditable.
The detectives were caught and during congressional hearings the entire dirty scheme was revealed, which made General Motors even worse, but led to an increase in seat belts and other safety features.
9. Progressive Insurance Spied on Clients in Church
Insurance companies have a bad reputation at the best of times, and if you haven't had a bad experience with them yourself, you probably know someone who has. So when you learn that a company like Progressive has taken the time to spy on people in church , it certainly won't help their image.
Progressive hired detectives to go into the church of a couple who were suing an insurer and spy on them. They became church members and even joined private support group for people dealing with serious personal issues like drug addiction and abortion. They recorded these meetings to get dirt on the couple. This led to the people filing another lawsuit against the company, as well as the detectives.
Progressive CEO publicly apologized, but the company also denied, that I did something wrong in the legal documents.
8. Pillow Pets Hires Detectives to Track Down Counterfeit Pillows
Pillow Pets first hit the toy market in the early 2000s. They look like typical stuffed animals with the added bonus of being able to turn into pillows. They became very popular, and by 2009, there were Gross sales amounted to $7 million As with everything popular, this fame soon brought wooden imitations.
By 2011, U.S. Marshals were getting involved in the world of pet pillows, hunting down counterfeits. Fake Pillow Pets were flooding the market, so the company hired private detectives to track down the source of counterfeits.
Their efforts led the marshals to a New York warehouse owned by a rival toy company. The entire facility had been kept under lock and key to prevent the other company from finding out, and when the marshals arrived, they seized from warehouse 17,000 counterfeits .
7. New York Ice Cream Trucks Spy on Each Other
Ice cream is a fun summer treat, but only if you're the one eating it. If you're an ice cream vendor in New York City, the whole game can get cutthroat and brutal. In 2017, the cool world of ice cream heated up when Mister Softee went to war with rival ice cream vendor New York Ice Cream.
Both companies use ice cream trucks, but Mister Softee accused the other company of using rogue Mister Softee trucks. About half a dozen detectives were hired by Mister Softee to spy on the competitors, which eventually became so heated that the detectives were threatened tubes .
New York Ice Cream, a company founded by a previous Mister Softee employee, has been accused of using Mister Softee's logo and even trademark jingle . The judge ruled in favor of Mister Softee that the competition must be stopped .
6. Lenny Dykstra hired investigators to blackmail MLB umpires
Former professional baseball player Lenny Dykstra has a checkered past that includes several arrests And challenges of people social media brawls, as well as fraud and even grand theft auto. However, his aggressive behavior is nothing new, and he readily admits that even in his heyday he did some questionable things.
Back in 2015, Dykstra admitted that he had hired investigators to gather dirt on major league umpires. He did it specifically to blackmail them into making calls in his favor during games, like widening the strike zone so he could get more walks than strikeouts. You might call that cheating. Really elaborate cheating.
He says that paid $500,000 , and then notes that he led the league for two years after that, demonstrating that his plan worked.
5. Uber has a history of hiring security firms to investigate critics.
Uber has only been around since 2009, but the company has had a huge impact on the world. The idea of ride sharing has become ubiquitous around the world, and in 2021 revenue the company made up 17.4 billion dollars However, this time was not without scandals. Accusations of sexual harassment are numerous, including in obstruction of justice , unfair dismissal and much more. And given all these allegations, it is no surprise that the company is hiring investigators to probe its accusers.
When the company was accused of violating antitrust laws, Uber hired a firm that employed former CIA employees , to deal with not only the plaintiffs but the lawyers as well. The investigation was uncovered, and it blew up in Uber's face when the judge in the original case said it provided "reasonable grounds to suspect fraud."
In 2014, in the midst of a PR dinner with journalists and the likes of actor Ed Norton, Uber's vice president spoke openly about hiring investigators to dig up dirt on journalists who criticized the company. He immediately tried to backtrack after lunch.
4. Rockstar Games hired a detective to find the musician's family
As we have seen so far, most of the time a private investigator is hired to do some pretty shady work, but that is not always the case. After all, they are not inherently nefarious, it is just that most things require investigation only because people are trying to get to the bottom of secrets or unscrupulous actions. However, Rockstar Games, the company behind the hugely popular franchise Grand Theft Auto , showed that with the help of investigators, good work can be done.
Series Grand Theft Auto is known for its music, and in GTA IV there was a song " Walk the Night » , released by the Skatt Bros. in 1979. It broke sales records and since release earned more than 2 billion dollars . Some of that money went to the musicians whose music was featured, which meant the Skatt Bros were due for payday. The problem was, songwriter Sean Delaney had died. in 2003 .
The publishing stock that Delaney owned was given to his brother, sister, and nephew, but no one knew where it was. Rockstar did the right thing by Delaney and, instead of leaving it at that, hired an investigator to track down his relatives. The investigator would travel to Orum, Utah, a town of less than 100,000 people, to find them and make sure they got what they were owed.
3. Australian municipalities hire investigators to have sex with prostitutes.
Imagine trying to explain your job to someone and get them to take you seriously if you were one of the investigators hired by the Australian government to recruit prostitutes and then report back on your experience. As incredible as it sounds, it was a real case, probably funded by taxpayers' money.
In 2007, Sydney authorities tried to crack down on the illegal brothers in the city. Somewhere north of $16,000 It was paid for three years to get the investigators to go through the whole process from start to finish so that the council had irrefutable evidence of illegal activity. Brothels are legal in Australia, but they have to be legal brothels if that is to make sense. Just as you can't have an unlicensed bar in America, you can't have an unlicensed brothel in Australia.
Back in 2019, investigators still hiring , to visit massage parlors and find out if sexual services were offered in addition to legal activities. The work includes either actions performed by employees or, if part of the work, full sex with employees under investigation.
2. Spanish town hires detective to spy on pet owners
Nobody likes a dog owner who doesn't clean up after their dog. It's the scourge of the modern world, but unless you catch someone in the act of grooming, there's not much you can do about it. But for one city in Spain, that wasn't enough.
Colmenar Viejo invested in hiring a detective back in 2014 to roam the streets undercover with a camera and collect evidence. The detectives’ job wasn’t to stop anyone if they caught them ignoring their responsibilities as a pet owner. Instead, they simply collected evidence and turned it over to the police. In that case, pet owners could expect a decent a fine of 750 euros after the fact. This is actually a small fine compared to larger cities like Madrid and Barcelona, where fines are double that.
The detective seemed to be something of a last resort, as the already steep fines turned out to be not enough to convince residents to leave. So the added threat of people knowing they were being watched may have done the trick.
1. California Water District hires investigators to track Tom Selleck's water use.
California summers have been harsh for a number of years, with droughts and fires becoming more and more common. Many communities have had to set water use rules to conserve what is available.
Actor Tom Selleck, best known for his role Magnum P.I. in the 1980s, owns a ranch in California, and was charged in 2015 with using more than his fair share of water, illegally taking it from the Calleguas area. Calleguas Municipal Water District hired a private detective and found that a truck from Selleck's ranch had hit the hydrant several times between 2013 and 2015.
Selleck's representatives said the water was from a construction site and the actor paid for it, not stole it, but the county pointed out that you can't just buy water from someone else. Selleck eventually agreed to pay the county just over $21,000 for settlement of the claim.
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