Social media is more than a way to stay in touch with friends and family.
It can also help you to find friends and family who go missing.
As with any form of search though, if you are going to be conducting your own investigation using social media, there are several rules you will need to follow:
- Never engage outside the limits of the law
- Safety should always be your primary concern
- Never get in the way of professionals working the case
Below are 4 ways you can conduct an amateur investigation in assisting to help locate a missing individual:
Today, we share how to locate missing family members online based on our own deep experience. Like most aspects of detective work we follow a process.
Delinquent debtors often defraud the people nearest them, and you may find kindred spirits keen to join in the hunt as you follow our method.
The reasons why people go missing include escaping from something, suffering trauma, and undue influence by other people. We examine all three reasons here.
We need to understand the situation from the missing person’s perspective, when trying to find them and reunite with them at home. Going missing is not a crime. Freedom of movement is a basic human right, although the police will take minor children and the aged into protective custody if they believe they are at risk. We start from this perspective when considering how to find a missing person in Australia . We have three important questions to ask ourselves before we begin.
Knowing how to find a missing person is a question of following a logical process. Broadly speaking, there are three stages to this. Find them here.
Quite often going missing is a sign of a deeper trauma. Some missing persons in Australia have mental problems, addictions, and mounting debt.
The Australian National Missing Persons Coordination Centre reports 38,000 people go missing in our country every year. Most return of their own will, or someone finds them within a short period. However, 2,000 vanish for over three months or even forever. These numbers may be only the tip of the iceberg of missing persons in Australia, because of the stigma attached.
We have a deep understanding of social behaviour. Knowing how to spot these clues makes this one of my two top methods to find a missing person in Australia.
An honest answer to the question, “why use a private investigator to find a missing person” could be because we are more focussed and solve cases. After our first, free half initial telephone conversation, people commonly ask us, why use a private investigator to find a missing person. Surely, they reason, I can do this myself now that everything is on the internet. Moreover, aren’t the police supposed to investigate crimes? The reality is different. Although the police investigate crimes, going missing is not a criminal offence in itself. Although they may look for a missing person if they suspect they committed a crime, of course.
Reconnection within families is sometimes immediate, and that is a wonderful thing to witness. More often and not though, there’s a period of adjustment.
Here is how to find a missing person in six steps, if you prefer to look for a lost relative yourself. The most important thing is to bring them back alive. Most missing people return to friends and families within a few months. Some may take a year or longer, while a few vanish permanently. We solve most of our cases within three days.
We start from the perspective that freedom of movement is a basic human right, when considering how to find a missing person in Australia.
How to Find a Missing Person and Ask Them to Come Home
We need to understand the situation from the missing person’s perspective, when trying to find them and reunite with them at home. Going missing is not a crime.
The employer has a duty to follow up and investigate. The employee might have met with an accident, or fallen ill on duty. They have an obligation to care.
A Missing Worker in Australia and The Duty of Care
Employers contact us about employees that fail to report for duty from time to time. Do we have a legal responsibility towards these missing people, they wonder, and if so what ought they to do about it. As background, workplace, health, and safety law requires them to take ‘reasonable care’ to avoid foreseeable risk or injury. Hence, if they become a missing worker in Australia in the course of their duty, their employer cannot simply walk away.
Missing persons we recover often speak of the utter loneliness of being alone. Let’s explore where missing people go to hide, when they have a choice.
Where Missing People Go to Hide
Approximately 35,000 people go missing in Australia every year. Those most likely to do so are those with a mental illness, young people, and aged people with dementia in that order. The Salvation Army confirms 1,600 of these disappear for at least a year, some forever more. Some 600 of the 35,000 people are abducted per the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The rest vanish deliberately, or simply drift away. Let’s explore where missing persons go to hide, when they have a choice
A missing persons investigation checklist helps us gather our thoughts, after we discover they suddenly vanished without warning or saying goodbye.
A missing persons investigation checklist helps us gather our thoughts, after we discover they suddenly vanished without warning or saying farewell. Time is of the essence during this initial period. That is because their trail is warmest and our memories are freshest right after the event. Here are some thoughts to have running through your mind as you prepare to speak to a detective.
Missing Persons in Australia has extensive networks, and in the world’s other major countries too. We offer a free half hour phone consultation. Call now.
How to Find a Missing Relative Yourself
We start looking back to the carefree days of youth as we become a little older. Especially those extended family holidays we shared with cousins. We may have lost contact when our family moved towns after times got tough. If you are curious to know how one of them turned out, you might be able find a missing relative yourself in one of these ways.
Quite often going missing is a sign of a deeper trauma. Some missing persons in Australia have mental problems, addictions, and mounting debt.
Missing Persons in Australia: Where Have They Gone?
A Google search for ‘missing persons gold coast’ throws up a long list of recent posts. What is going on in Gold Coast? Is this business as usual?
The Search for Missing Persons Australia Wide
An honest answer to the question, “why use a private investigator to find a missing person” could be because we are more focussed, and solve cases.
Why Use a Private Investigator to Find a Missing Person
After our first, free half hour telephone conversation, people commonly ask us, why use a private investigator to find a missing person. Surely, they reason, I can do this myself now that everything is on the internet. Moreover, aren’t the police supposed to investigate crimes? The reality is different. Although the police investigate crimes, going missing is not a criminal offence in itself. Although they may look for a missing person if they suspect they committed a crime, of course.
Knowing how to find a missing person is a question of following a logical process. Broadly speaking, there are three stages to this. Find them here.
How to Find a Missing Person as Efficiently As Possible
It’s essential to remain calm when somebody special suddenly vanishes. Panic is our worst enemy, but staying calm is a friend we need. Knowing how to find a missing person is a question of following a logical process. Broadly speaking, there are three stages to this, namely:
Tapping into immediate community support
Liaising with local and state authorities
Hiring professional assistance from a specialist
No matter how the Federal Police raise community awareness of missing persons in Australia through initiatives like Missing Persons Week , and the Stay Connected campaign, the truth and the sinking feeling that accompanies it only really strike when we find ourselves personally affected, and need help locating missing family members.
While the real estate and tourism industries go to great lengths to argue that Gold Coast living is different and exceptionally good, some things remain the same. The reasons for young people disappearing are similar to those behind younger missing persons in Australia everywhere. The report by the Australian Institute of Criminology accessible at this link goes into considerable detail about these, and we thought their findings would make interesting reading.
The best way to go about finding a missing person in Australia depends on how recently you last saw them, and to what age category they belong. We should search for an older person with failing memory immediately, as should we a young child that is unable to take care of itself. Older teenagers and adults able to cope on their own for a while, require a more measured approach because they are deliberately concealing themselves.
Skip tracing missing debtors is a topic that often pops up in our news feed. This is deliberate. Attention to detail is an integral part of finding missing persons in Australia, although the term ‘skip tracing missing debtors’ can be confusing. We even had a dumpster company call us when their waste container went missing. For the record, we found it where they left it.
The missing person phenomenon is no respecter of age and gender. The Australian Federal Police confirm that around 35,000 people become missing persons in Australia annually, but mostly only for a while. Of them, 85% reunite with their loved ones within a week, with a further 14.5% eventually turning up.
Young people continue to be the largest number of Australia missing persons at a little more than half. The next biggest group are seniors. Quite often when we find a missing person Gold Coast police have been searching for, it turns out they have disappeared before.
The report by the Australian Institute of Criminology titled Missing Persons in Australia published 2008, continues to be an invaluable reference work because in our experience the underlying reasons continue unchanged. Quite early in the report, the authors introduce a concept of a ‘continuum of missingness’.
The annual number of new Australia missing persons is steady at around 35,000, with 99.5% being reunited soon or within a year - and the rest joining the 1,600-odd stubborn cases. Going missing is beginning to look like part of the Australian way of life for some. Their loved ones are not without help though..
Skip Tracing is a particular method to track down a person who has disappeared, without leaving behind obvious clues. The earliest skip tracers date back to Neolithic times, when our ancestors followed animals across bush and deserts by noting their often almost invisible spoors,
American coined the term ‘skip tracing’ to find missing persons to describe marshals chasing after criminals who skipped town after committing crimes. By then, methods had become more sophisticated than a sheriff and his posse chasing desperadoes through the Badlands, after they blew up the town’s bank and made off with money. [ Visit for help: www.auscovertinvestigations.com.au/skip-tracing ]
Using skip tracing to find missing people starts with gathering as much information as we can. Once this phase is over, the next move may be obvious. Breaking news is especially valuable. Nowadays it is possible to trace a missing person’s thoughts and movements on the social media. How often do not get messages over Facebook saying “in <place> now and this is my hotel”.
Skip tracing in Australia may date back to the Great Depression that followed the Wall Street crash of October 1929. By mid-1932, almost thirty-two per cent of Australians were out of work. Historian Wendy Lowenstein remembers how, ‘people were forced into … all sorts of shabby and humiliating compromises … fathers deserted the family and went on the track’. Skip tracing in Australia took off as mothers searched for absconded fathers, and companies sought out delinquent debtors who had ‘skipped town’.
‘Skip Tracing’ is an industry-specific term for finding someone who has absconded. The person has usually walked away from a personal obligation and may be:
A director with corporate responsibility
A partner who milked the bank account
A professional with access to trust accounts
An employee who stole intellectual property
A parent who abandoned their minor children
There is nothing more traumatic than finding the far side of the bed empty in the morning when you wake, or the cradle unoccupied when you go to feed the baby late at night. Panic steps in, followed by a hollow feeling in your stomach and then a numbness sweeps over you. While it is tempting to deny the situation in the hope that it comes right, the reality is the sooner you follow up the better when it comes to missing person investigations.
Skip tracing is a laborious process whereby a trained investigator examines the minutiae of a person’s life who vanished, after failing to settle or even negotiate their debt. Missing Persons in Australia assists lawyers and finance companies trace these people with significant success. We have cracked a number of high profile cases down the years.
Your first response to discovering that a person you know has disappeared in Brisbane and you fear for them, should be to contact the Queensland Police at your nearest Police Station. Insurance companies expect their clients to act responsible. Moreover, if the person is a minor and you have care over them, the Police could consider you negligent if you did not even ask them how to find a missing person in Brisbane or (elsewhere in Queensland).
It can be unbelievably frustrating when someone you trust decides not to pay your loan back and vanishes. We recently helped a client find a friend who disappeared after she mortgaged her home to settle his arrears. Bad debts in business can cripple the owner with negative cash flow. We have solved many similar problems with skip tracing , and decided to chat about how this method can help locate your missing debtor in this blog.
The Nepal earthquake and its aftershocks affected hundreds of our own young people. This raises the question of what parents ought to do when their son or daughter announces ‘I am going to take a gap year and I want to see the world.’ It is pointless trying to prevent this happening as it could lead to a breakdown in family relationships. Many of the young missing people Australia is still searching for left home after a disagreement with their mum or dad.
Every fifteen minutes another person joins the Australian missing persons list. The Federal Police provide this shocking statistic and it may just be the tip of the iceberg because we will never know the true numbers. These people all go through trauma despite the fact that the overwhelming percentage return home eventually. This makes it vital to speed up the process as much as possible.
That depends on what you mean by ‘proven way’. Our dictionary defines this as an established method. That said, not every cake turns out perfect and not every search for a missing person yields the desired results. We suggest the following ways to find missing people in Australia in the interests of a quick resolution. If you are unsuccessful, you may like to call us for a free assessment .
Clients approach us with a variety of reasons for wanting to re-establish contact with someone they miss. Typical examples are school pals, childhood sweethearts and someone with whom they shared good times. Others are more interested in recovering debts. Despite these differences, the secrets of how to locate a missing person in Australia are similar.
Of the 30,000-odd Australians who go missing and vanish every year, a good 95% reunite with their families within weeks. This is because their decision to disappear was on the back of an emotional uptick. When a loved one goes missing, we have little way of knowing whether they belong in the 95% or 5%. Thus, we cannot afford to wait and see what happens. Finding a missing person may be the decisive factor in persuading them to return home.
This is almost an open-ended question! If your teen ran away before, they may be retracing their steps. This is certainly true of seniors with dementia who often go down memory lane in search of something in their past. At other times, there may be a secret lover somewhere in the background. If you suspect you know who that is then your clue could be where they stay. Hence there is no golden key to the question ‘how to find a missing person’.
Family members, friends and sometimes employers report some 35,000 people as having vanished every year in our country. The actual number of missing persons in Australia is likely to be higher, although there is no way to calculate this accurately. Fortunately, the overwhelming number reunite with their loved ones in a few weeks. The private detective company Missing Persons in Australia is proud to have assisted in a number of these cases.
Missing Persons in Australia uses a wide array of methods to hunt down missing people, including debtors who have skipped town without paying what they owe. In fact this is where the term skip tracing comes from. Several other professions also use the same technique. They include journalists, police detectives, repossession agents and lawyers tracking down key witnesses.
According to Australian police records, they receive a missing person report on average every fifteen minutes. That is ninety-six a day or 35,000 a year. Of these, 85% report in within a week in one way or another. In the end, 175 are gone forever or 0.05%.
