Background investigation is a licensed-PI service. We refer.
We do not perform private investigation field work in Florida. When a matter requires a real background investigation, beyond a database aggregator, we coordinate with a licensed Florida private investigator in our network. They build the report under their license, with their contract and their work product. Quinn coordinates the introduction; the licensed PI handles the case directly with you.
The pages that pop up on the first page of Google for "background check" are mostly database resellers.
Those products have a place, but they are not background investigations.
A background investigation is a person, with a license, doing the work of verifying who someone actually is.
That is what the partner delivers.
How the referral works
- You contact us. NDA-protected scoping conversation.
- We scope the matter. Pre-employment, pre-marital, due diligence on a business partner, an investor, a tenant, or a litigation subject.
- We introduce you to the right licensed FL PI. The partner whose specialty fits the framework and the geography.
- The partner engages you directly. Their license, their contract, their investigative report.
What we do, what the partner does
- SleuthX (Quinn): consultation, scoping, partner introduction, and the digital forensics companion covering OSINT on the subject's online footprint, social-media history, and reputational exposure, plus corporate insider-threat and e-discovery forensics when a hire, an investor, or a counterparty raises a data-misuse or litigation question (the same digital attach Kroll, FTI, and K2 bundle into diligence).
- Licensed PI partner: identity verification, county-level court records, civil and criminal history, business and licensing history, professional and regulatory actions, FCRA-compliant employment screens when applicable, and the formal investigative report under their license.
Who this is for
Background investigation referrals route to:
- employers running pre-employment screens for executive and sensitive-role hires
- individuals running pre-marital or pre-cohabitation due diligence
- family offices and HNW principals doing due diligence on business partners, household staff, and significant introductions
- attorneys investigating subjects in active litigation
- and investors doing diligence ahead of a deal
Why a referral, not direct delivery
Florida treats background investigation as a regulated activity when it is performed for compensation beyond what an aggregator returns. The licensed PI partner does this all day. We coordinate the introduction and pair the field investigation with our digital exposure analysis when the matter calls for both.
Every matter runs only for a documented, lawful permissible purpose.
When the purpose is employment or tenant-eligibility screening, that work is FCRA-regulated: the licensed partner runs it as, or in coordination with, a consumer reporting agency, with the subject's written consent and full adverse-action handling.
When the purpose is non-FCRA due diligence or litigation, whether pre-marital, business-partner, investor, or litigation-subject investigation, the resulting report is not a consumer report and is not for any FCRA-covered eligibility decision.
The partner confirms which framework applies before any work begins; it is that purpose routing, not a disclaimer, that keeps the matter clean.
The FTC is explicit that stamping a report “not a consumer report” does not exempt it. What governs is the eligibility-decision use, so a true employment or tenant screen is routed to a consumer reporting agency built for it, not run around the rule.
Cross-references
What this costs
PI-partner background rates are set by the partner. A standard county-level civil-and-criminal background typically runs three hundred and fifty to twelve hundred dollars depending on jurisdiction count and depth; international, executive-tier, and litigation backgrounds run materially higher, always with a written estimate before work begins.
We do not mark up partner fees.
The SleuthX digital-forensics companion is examiner-delivered, under our own engagement letter. Reputational OSINT, insider-threat review, and e-discovery on a counterparty open with a $5,000 refundable engagement retainer; done-for-you work runs from $3,000, with $400/hr flat for anything beyond.
