By the time most people call me, they've already been sitting with their suspicion for weeks. Some have been managing it for months. And in almost every case, they've done a few things in that window that make my job harder, and their case weaker.
Here are the six mistakes I see most often, and what to do instead.
1. Confronting Before You Have Evidence
This is the most common and most damaging mistake. You have a strong feeling something is wrong. You confront your spouse, your employee, or your business partner. They deny it. Now they're alert, their story is locked in, and whatever evidence existed is being actively erased.
Confrontation feels urgent and necessary in the moment. But if you're going to need documented evidence, for a divorce, a custody case, a legal claim, a termination, you've just made that evidence significantly harder to obtain.
What to do instead: Write down what you know, what you suspect, and what you've observed. Call me before you say a word to the person you suspect.
2. Conducting Your Own Surveillance
I understand the impulse. You need to know, and you need to know now. So you drive by. You follow. You park outside and wait.
The problems: you're emotionally compromised in a way that creates poor decision-making, your presence is likely to be detected, any evidence you gather is legally vulnerable, and in Texas there are specific statutes around stalking and harassment that you can find yourself on the wrong side of even when you're the wronged party.
More practically: trained surveillance is invisible. Untrained surveillance gets noticed. When your subject knows they're being watched, the investigation is compromised. Read more about why DIY investigation hurts your case.
What to do instead: Call me. I'll tell you within minutes whether surveillance makes sense for your situation and what it would involve.
3. Searching Their Phone, Email, or Accounts Without Authorization
Texas law is clear on this. Accessing someone's email, social media accounts, or stored digital communications without authorization is a federal crime under the Stored Communications Act, regardless of whether that person is your spouse. Evidence obtained this way is inadmissible. You may face criminal exposure. And it hands the other side a distraction from the actual issue.
What to do instead: Tell me what you think you'd find. There are legal ways to obtain digital evidence, through discovery in legal proceedings, through legally obtained public records, and through legitimate investigation of publicly available information.
4. Waiting Too Long
Surveillance footage gets overwritten. Cell tower records are held for limited periods. Witnesses' memories fade. Physical evidence disappears. The longer you wait after something suspicious happens, the more of the evidentiary picture you permanently lose.
I've had cases where the core event was documented clearly, but we could no longer obtain the supporting evidence that would have made the case airtight because the client waited four months before calling.
What to do instead: When something feels wrong, call immediately. A consultation costs nothing. The cost of waiting can be evidence that's gone forever.
5. Telling Friends or Family What You Suspect
You're human. You need to talk to someone. But the people you tell become potential witnesses. They form opinions. They sometimes act on what you've told them in ways you didn't anticipate. And if your situation ends up in court, what you told people and when you told them becomes part of the record.
What to do instead: Talk to an attorney and talk to me. Both conversations are confidential. Neither one becomes part of a court record unless we choose to make it so.
6. Hiring the Cheapest Investigator You Can Find
I understand the instinct. This is already an unexpected expense and you're trying to manage it. But PI work is one of those fields where the cost difference between a licensed, experienced investigator and a cut-rate one is trivial compared to the difference in results.
Specifically: evidence gathered improperly by an underqualified investigator doesn't just fail to help your case, it can actively undermine it. Courts have excluded entire investigations because of chain-of-custody problems, licensing issues, or documentation failures.
What to do instead: Ask for credentials, references, and a clear explanation of how they document evidence. Ask whether they're a licensed Texas PI (license number verifiable on the DPS website). My license is A11319. Learn more about how to document evidence properly.
