Find employment, banking and other pieces of information on a person.
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Written by: Eric Neal
Date: Nov 1, 2020
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For many years I have spoken about the importance of adding PACER to every investigator’s tool belt. PACER stands for Public Access to Court Electronic Records. The website can be found here: https://pacer.uscourts.gov. The system allows users to obtain case and docket information from the United States district courts, United States courts of appeals, and United States bankruptcy courts. Anyone can access these records. The system is managed by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts in accordance with the policies of the Judicial Conference, headed by the Chief Justice of the United States.
As of January 1, 2020, PACER’s fee schedule changed to give users more searches with less costs. Essentially, each page costs 10 cents up to $3.00. In other words, a document that is 54 pages, will still cost just $3.00. If you spend less than $30.00 in a quarter, your access is free. If you spend that amount or more, you’re responsible for the full amount plus any other fees. To see their fee schedule in-depth, visit: https://www.uscourts.gov/services-forms/fees/electronic-public-access-fee-schedule.
For the purpose of this article, we’re only going to be looking at the information one can obtain off of a bankruptcy filing. There are so many other ways to use PACER to obtain information, but to discuss them all would be a novel! For this example, I’ve chosen a 2020 bankruptcy from a random individual that will not be identified. We will be going over the top items that I watch out for, but they are by no means the only helpful pieces of information. Without further ado…
Login to: https://pcl.uscourts.gov/pcl/index.jsf
I generally click on “New Search” and then on “Advanced Party Search.” This will bring you to the following screen.
For the purpose of this example, I chose a generic name, changed the court type to “Bankruptcy” and put the “Date Filed” as 01/01/2020 to 11/01/2020. With my search, I got 168 results. See below.
Click on the case number you want and it will bring you to a “Query” page, shown below.
From here, click on “Docket Report.” The “Docket Report” is where you strike gold! On the top part of the screen, you’ll be able to see the filing party’s name, address and last four of their SSN (social security number). As shown at the bottom of the below screenshot, you’ll see a list of different documents. The “Voluntary Petition” is the document you want. Usually it’s the most pages and right at the beginning.
After you click on the corresponding number next to “Voluntary Petition,” you’ll be brought to another screen where the system will tell you the cost. Almost always, this will be $3.00. Remember, even if it’s 52 pages, the system won’t charge you more than $3.00 for a document.
Clicking “View Document” will either display the pdf in your browser or download it. If it displays in your browser, I would suggest saving it right away. This document is essentially the bankruptcy application. It will have tons of personal information given by the filing party seeking the bankruptcy.
Let’s examine the parts of this petition that are most helpful to me. Depending on the type of case you may be working, there may be other sections (or documents) that are more helpful to you.
Since we’ve already properly identified the filing party, we don’t need to do so again. The next section that might be helpful to you is part 3. If the person owns a sole proprietorship, they’ll list that information here. This may be helpful as not all states require a sole proprietorship to be listed with the secretary of state. As seen below, the filing party in this example did not have a sole proprietorship.
Part 5 is often overlooked, but it can make a big difference in what direction your investigation goes. At the bottom of part 5, the filing party will need to state if they are incapacitated, have a disability or if they are on active duty. The filing party in this example, did not check any of those options.
Part 7 is going to have the filing party’s signature. This can be extremely useful with various types of investigations. Even with debt collection lawsuits, the signature on a voluntary petition (an official document) could be compared to a signature on a credit application.
Under “Official Form 107” part 2, you’re going to learn some general information about the filing party’s income. This individual said that in about 6 months time, he earned almost $20,000.00. He stated for the year prior, he earned just over $31,000.00. He also stated that in this year, he received a $1,200.00 stimulus payment and $1,080.00 in unemployment. A little below that section, we learn what active payments he is currently making on his auto loan and where he is paying that money.
Scrolling down to “Schedule A/B Property,” this section is particularly useful if you don’t have the ability to obtain vehicle information or you’re in a state like NY where the data providers don’t provide that information.
Below that will be the value of small possessions such as clothing and electronics. The filing party here did have a revolver that was listed. Normally, this information won’t be of too much use, but being able to inform the process server that the individual does own a gun… can’t hurt.
Scrolling down a little more, we come to the banking information. This is obviously extremely useful, especially in doing bank account searches. If this is a recent bankruptcy filing, the banking information may still be good. Unless the account is in the negative, there’s a good change the individual will still have a relationship with the same bank (mostly because it may be difficult to establish a new relationship with another bank). You’ll also be able to learn about any stocks, investment accounts, etc that the person may have.
If you keep scrolling down, you’ll see the creditors that have secured and unsecured claims. I rarely pay much attention to this section, but it may help some. The next section that is of great benefit to me is the “Schedule 1: Your Income” part. Here, we learn of the individual’s employment details. If this is a recent bankruptcy filing, this can be a great lead to where they are currently working now.
There may be many other parts of this document that are beneficial to you, however what is covered here can greatly assist you in an investigation. As I run a collection agency, having access to PACER is an absolute necessity!
If you enjoyed this article, feel free to reach reach out with any feedback you may have. My social & contact links are listed at the top.
Eric Neal
PIF Solutions, LLC
