Asset searches: what is actually findable, and what is a scam

There are two kinds of asset search on the market. One produces evidence that stands up. The other produces a spreadsheet of bank balances and account numbers, and the only reliable thing about it is that obtaining it was a federal offence.

Telling them apart is straightforward once you know what is actually available from public and lawful sources, and what is not available at any price without breaking the law.

The bright line: bank balances

Start here, because it is where most people get taken.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act prohibits obtaining, or attempting to obtain, another person’s financial information by making false, fictitious or fraudulent statements to financial institutions. The Federal Trade Commission has enforced this directly. In Operation Detect Pretext it sued information brokers who advertised exactly this service — bank account numbers, balances and investment account details for fees between $100 and $600. In one documented instance an investigator asked for a fiancé’s checking account balance; the broker telephoned the bank impersonating the fiancé, obtained it, and sold it on.

That practice is called pretexting, and it is what a vendor is doing when they quote a fixed price for “all bank accounts and balances”. There is no lawful database of private individuals’ bank balances. Nobody has legitimate access to one. If a report contains that information and no subpoena was issued, someone lied to a bank to get it.

The consequences do not fall only on the vendor. A client who commissioned the search, and any attorney who relies on the product, has a problem — the evidence is tainted, and the commissioning is itself exposure.

What is genuinely findable

The lawful picture is narrower than the marketing but far more useful than people expect, because assets that matter tend to be recorded somewhere by design.

Real property. County recorder and assessor records show ownership, transfers, deeds, mortgages, liens and valuations. In Arizona these are county-level and searchable. Transfers to relatives or to newly formed entities shortly before a claim is filed are visible here, and the recording date is the fact that matters.

Business entities. Corporation commission and secretary of state filings show entities, formation dates, registered agents, officers and status. An individual with no assets who is the sole officer of three active LLCs is telling you where to look next.

Uniform Commercial Code filings. UCC-1 financing statements show secured interests in business assets — equipment, inventory, receivables. They reveal both what is owned and who already has a claim on it.

Court records. Judgments, liens, bankruptcies, divorce filings and civil litigation history. Divorce files in particular often contain financial disclosures made under oath.

Vehicles, vessels and aircraft. Registration and title records, with aircraft registry being fully public.

Professional and regulatory licences. Establish employment, income capacity and, for some professions, financial disclosure obligations.

Tax and mechanics liens, and secured creditor filings. These show obligations, which matters as much as showing assets — a debtor with substantial property and larger secured debt is not a collectable debtor.

Open-source and social material. Photographs of a boat, a listing for a property, a business announcement. Not evidence on its own, but frequently the thread that leads to a record.

What lawful access requires you to accept

Two things, and both are worth stating plainly to a client at the outset.

First, bank and brokerage accounts are reachable only through legal process — a subpoena, a judgment debtor examination, discovery in existing litigation. That is a matter for counsel, not for an investigator’s database. What an investigator can do is establish which institutions are likely to hold accounts, so that process is aimed rather than scattered.

Second, a permissible purpose is required for much of the underlying data. Curiosity is not one. Judgment enforcement, pending or contemplated litigation, fraud investigation and due diligence generally are. A vendor who never asks why you want the search is not applying that test, which tells you how they operate.

How to read a search you have been given

Ask four questions of any report:

• What is the source of each item? A finding with no cited source is unusable in court and probably unusable in negotiation.
• Is it current? Aggregated databases are often years stale. County records are as of the date pulled, and that date should be on the report.
• Is the identification confirmed? Name-only matching is the leading cause of wrong-person findings. Date of birth, address history and known associates are what tie a record to a person.
• Are liabilities shown alongside assets? A report that lists only assets is a sales document, not an analysis.

The realistic expectation

A properly conducted asset search tells you what someone owns of record, what is encumbered, what entities they control, and what has moved recently. It builds a picture solid enough to support a decision about whether to sue, settle, extend credit or enforce.

What it does not do is produce a live balance. Anyone who promises that is describing a crime, and it is worth walking away from the quote rather than negotiating the price.

Honeybadger Solutions runs asset and financial investigations from lawful sources, with each finding sourced and dated so it survives scrutiny. This work sits under private investigations, and where the trail moves into digital records or cryptocurrency it continues through blockchain forensics. Where identity and history need verifying rather than assets located, that is a background check.

This is general information, not legal advice.