Tag: social media monitoring

You Shouldn’t Post That Here

By now we have all been schooled on what we shouldn’t post publicly in social media and why. In fact, you can read all over the internet why it is not a good idea to post your COVID vaccination card. It is also not a good idea to post about vacation plans.

When it comes to insurance fraud, a claimant’s social media posts plays an important role in any investigation. When someone is trying to claim an injury when there isn’t one, they need to lock down. You would think that the fraudster would be careful when they post publicly in social media. This is not always the case. In fact, recently we performed a deep web scan on a person suspected of insurance fraud. This was a workman’s comp case. A friend of the person actually cautioned him about a post he had recently added. She came right out and told him to be careful what he was posting. He answered her post by saying, “I not. I know how this works.” The original post was deleted, so we never knew what he posted to make her say that. It was suspicious however, that he left this exchange up on his profile page. In other words, he knew he might be watched in social media.

“Checking social media accounts has become one of the first things an insurance company or adjuster will do when you file a claim,” says Frank Darras an attorney from California who specializes in law suits against insurance companies.

Source:Auto Insurance Quote

What to Look For in Social Media

When we conduct a deep web scan, we start with the data points that we know to be true on an individual. Name, address, date of birth, employer, address and email addresses. They are all critical pieces of information because each one may hold an attachment to something online about our person of interest. It is also important in authentication. We need to be certain we have the right person.

Some tips we have learned along the way that may be of help to you include the following:

  • Check for multiple profiles. You just found your person of interest’s Facebook profile and you think you are done there. Not always so. Many people have secondary profiles. They may have set them up, forgot about them or they use each one for different things. Believe it or not, you may discover them by looking through their friends list. This is especially true in Facebook.
  • Tell a Story: Across all social media platforms, it is important to check the dates of posts. When you put them altogether, they can tell a story of a person’s activity. Just by combing through this information, you may find an inconsistency in their story or claim. Perhaps they are claiming to have taken a fall at work. Yet, a social media post may show them complaining about back pain days prior. Connecting the dots doesn’t mean they are automatically guilty, but can mean that a deeper investigation is needed, just to be sure.
  • Proof of legally attained social media posts: That is where meta data comes into play. If you find something in a person’s social media profile, you are going to want to extract that post and gather the intelligence behind it. Remember, screenshots can easily be altered.

Video is the Golden Child

Instagram, TikTok, YouTube are all examples of social media known for their videos. People post videos of all kinds of things there. Searching these platforms can be very lucrative because of it. Just remember, if you do find something important there, you will want to not only obtain the meta data, but extract the actual video to keep as evidence that is admissible in court.

Keep in mind that we can extract videos and photos as well as capture the meta data from the post. Timing is everything however, and what is here today can be gone tomorrow.

Reputation Management: Hire an Investigator

When you think of reputation management, what industry comes to mind? Perhaps you would think of a PR or Communication company. We have all seen commercials on TV around companies that can help you improve your image. They promise to get rid of those bad reviews, gather up good ones, and make you look like you are the best thing out there. But are they missing something? I believe they are. Here’s why.

Chief Reputation Officer

What many companies don’t think about is that reputation management is something that needs to happen proactively, not reactively. A recent Forbes article titled “Five Reasons Your Company Needs A Chief Reputation Officer” explained it best.

“Most companies, including your competitors, are usually only thinking deeply about reputation management after a crisis has hit. They react and try desperately to repair the damage. This is a huge missed opportunity because the damage done was often completely avoidable. Just like no sports team wins a game playing only defense, your company needs to play strong defense and come out with a strong offense.”

Forbes

Where the Private Investigator Comes In

When I speak to Private Investigators, I am amazed that many have not thought about this area as a vital way to grow their business. In my opinion, they should be considered to be part of any good reputation management program or team. In our digital world, they will be able to determine exactly what needs to be monitored and how. After all, they do this type of investigating all the time.

Family law, infidelity cases and divorce depositions have been mainstream avenues for revenue for decades. Some of the PI’s love them, and some avoid them like the plaque. Those that avoid them do so because of the amount of work vs. the amount of compensation.

Promote your business as a firm that covers Corporate Reputation Management services. By doing so, you are in some ways, investigating for a company in some of the same ways you would be investigating for a cheating spouse. Only better, because the work is proactive VS. reactive. If you catch an issue that a corporation has online before it goes viral, you have saved the day.

Back in June, we wrote about Employee fraud and COVID19. In that post, we cited a Fortune 500 company’s loss of over $100,000.00 because of a plant shut down due to a dishonest employee. It happens more than we know.

Proactive Steps to Take

As a service offering, it is smart to offer a corporate client a deep web scan on their business. What does their online profile reveal? Some things to consider:

  1. Reviews are obvious, but many people think of them as Yelp, Google, and Trip Advisor. They are the biggies, but there is much more out there.
online reviews

2. Location based Monitoring: Does the company have more than one location globally? By creating a virtual fence around physical locations, an added security level is created for any violent social media mentions in the area. Additionally, automatically pull in any negative keywords for reputation management.

3. Employee Revenge. As more and more employees are laid off because of our current pandemic situation, some are understanding and some are not. It is human nature. Just today, I read a post in LinkedIn about a disgruntled employee telling everyone how she was let go from a major company. She went on to say that she mistakenly placed all of “who she was” around this position for the past 8 years and how this was a major life mistake. Her post gained a lot of views and encouraging comments, as it should. However, think about the company’s name there. Most people are left with the impression that the company did something wrong to her. We don’t know the full story, but it can still leave a lasting impression. Glassdoor is a website where current and former employees anonymously review companies. I will bet many don’t even know about that one site alone.

See the possibilities yet? Do you think in today’s online world, this could be something your firm is capable of doing? Email me if you would like to kick around the idea for your firm.

Online Corporate Protection and Executive Security

Proactive approach to corporate security online.

One thing we know for sure; cyber criminals attack corporate executives. The bigger the company, the higher the stakes. Mid-size companies may also be a target because those executives are time poor & money rich. It is exactly that space that I believe Investigators have their biggest opportunity to grow their business by offering this protection. You may have even had opportunity to conduct this research for a client or two in your own experience. But doing an OSINT sweep once a year may not be enough. I would suggest an ongoing program and will walk you through how to pitch this to your business clients.

Understanding the Treat

Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) ‘s recent report, “23rd Annual Global CEO Survey,” reveals that around 80% of CEOs have changed their online behavior due to potential risks. Corporate Espionage is alive and well and needs to be taken seriously as more and more employees overshare in social media. This allows for competitors to gain excellent insight into a vast array of information that would not otherwise be easily obtained. Banning employees from using social media at work has proven to be a nightmare and monitoring their social media internally has major privacy concerns. However, when approached correctly this type of monitoring is very valuable to any business regardless of their size.

The Challenge of Balance

What makes this tricky, is that the company still has the responsibility to keep their employees safe, protect assets and data, mitigate risk for threats of fraud and monitoring reputation. High level executives travel to areas of the world that do not share the same security measures we do in the United States. All of this coupled with cyber security risks and you have a recipe for a potential disaster. In the photo below through the software we use, a Global Awareness search allows us to see natural disasters (i.e. earthquakes, fires, hurricanes,) as well as public security incidents’ in real time. A company’s HR team may wish to set a global awareness query around the area of travel and within the appropriate time frame. Real time alerts are set in place for immediate notification of potential risk.

In a nutshell, there are proactive steps that can be put in motion to ensure the safety of everyone.