Single DUers: Would there be a market for this business idea I thought of? [View All]

[liberalhistorian]

As a 38-year-old never-married single parent I've been involved with my share of jerks and TWP's (Totally Wrong People). Some of them have really caused trouble in my life, particularly when there was a significant emotional and mental involvement on my part. Some were accomplished liars that even fooled my pretty sharp family and friends. And I've had friends and family who've dealt with the same thing, with both sexes, and, being single and involved in many singles groups, including my church's, I've heard countless horror stories about people who've married or gotten involved with TWP's who really pulled the wool over their eyes and caused a lot of trouble and problems and significant heartache and emotional wounds.

I know that if I, and the others, had known the person's true background beforehand, it would have saved a lot of trouble and prevented a lot of problems and heartache. As a paralegal who spent four years working for an employment investigation agency, I am thoroughly familiar with public records investigations, what's legally available and what isn't, etc., etc. And so I just had an idea for a business. Since you can find a tremendous amount of information about a person from public records and database searches, even including driving and some financial records, why not do background investigations on potential "significant others" for people who want to be sure they're not about to get seriously involved with someone who could drag them through hell emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially? Believe me, I've seen it happen often enough to know that even the smartest single men and women can get taken in, and I've had it happen to me.

One major possibility would be to do investigations for dating services, which have really proliferated these past several years. There are eight local branches of national dating services alone in my area, Northeastern Ohio (Cleveland), not to mention the local services. They can face serious liability problems in some cases; there was a case last year where a woman was stalked and harassed, and had money stolen from her, by someone she met through a "professional" dating service for "professionals", and it was a nationally-known service. It turned out he wasn't at all who he said he was, he'd been married multiple times with several domestic violence convictions, had filed bankruptcy twice, had filed frivolous lawsuits against past lovers, had been convicted of theft and fraud, and was not the professional he claimed to be, he had no professional license. Even his driving record was horrendous. Yet, he'd fooled everyone with his smooth charm and acting ability.

So, you see what I'm getting at. So, what do you think, am I just being foolish with this idea or is it something you think might work? I believe in old-fashioned romance as strongly as possible, but, at my age, I'm realizing that we have to be realistic.