About DataSearch

DataSearch, Inc. is a Florida-based detective agency, license number: A 1400285.

We specialize in finding people and finding information about people, hence our phone number: 888-FIND-OUT [888-346-3688]

We are accurate, reliable and most importantly, ethical. All of our private investigators are licensed in compliance with Florida Statutes governing private investigation agencies.

We are public records experts.

Our goal is to address your needs in a responsive, professional, and discreet manner.

“We’ll Find Anyone For You!”

Many years ago (prior to our work with computers) this is how we got our start:

The Virginian Pilot
AT A LOSS?
by Fred Kirsch
Aug 26, 1985

Ken Kramer, 29, drafted a plan to lose the blues and now thinks his locating services is a real find.

Could you, a caller wanted to know of Ken Kramer last week, “find my false teeth?” They were out there somewhere, the man assured Kramer, somewhere on the beach between 6th and 39th streets.

Another routine call.

Some days people call Ken Kramer wanting to know if he can find their uncle whom they last saw in Pungo – “must be eight, nine years ago by now.” Or their ex-husband and the stereo he was last seen carrying out of the house. Or the guy who took off with the washer and dryer and said he’d be right back with the dough.

Ken Kramer runs the Professional Locating Service, a one-man outfit dedicated to the motto “We’ll find Anyone or Anything. No Find… No Charge.” “If it’s out there,” he says, “I’ll find it.”

How much, you ask? How much is it worth to you? ask Kramer.

The 29-year-old Kramer, a draftsman by trade, started his part-time business about a year ago when he found something was missing from his life. “Let’s face it,” he says. “Drafting is pretty boring. I needed something to do nights.”

For the time being, Professional Locating Service is conveniently located in a small alcove just off the kitchen in Kramer’s Virginia Beach apartment, where he keeps his tools of the trade – a stack of phone books, city directories, a Rolodex filled with numbers of contacts and friends. Until Kramer gets home from his regular job, you get the answering service when you call 499-1765.

“You have to start with the philosophy that whoever or whatever it is, it’s not lost,” says Kramer, sitting in his office, a confident smile spreading across his face, “just temporarily misplaced, that’s all.”

“Mostly, people want me to find someone. But I never know what I’m going to hear when I pick up the phone. The other week, someone called and wanted me to find them a job. ‘I’ve been looking all over for a radiator for my car. You find one.” I’ll give most requests a shot. I guess you gotta be … well, different to do this.”

KEN KRAMER is tall with a receding hairline, friendly brown eyes and a manner and persuasive voice that he plays like a finely tuned instrument. Getting information or leads from tight-lipped relatives is nothing. Kramer could get a Trappist monk to talk.

He grew up in Indiana and attended East Central High in Brooksville where he “set a record for saying the fewest words of any student in the history of the school. But then I took some of those how-to-communicate courses and I haven’t stopped talking since.”

In his time, he’s been – “let’s see now.. a salesman, janitor, plumber, a carpenter, a bill collector and some other things.”

It was while he was working as a bill collector in Cincinnati the he first got the idea of being a finder of lost loves and lost teeth.

“I just sort of stumbled into the bill-collecting business,” he says. “I was looking for a job and I saw this ad for a ‘skip trace’. So I called and asked for an interview. When they asked if I had any questions about the job, I said just one: ‘What is a skip trace?’ I had no idea what it was. Turned out to be a bill collector. You trace people who’ve skipped out on their bills. I talked my way into the job.”

“I didn’t particularly like bringing people bad news, but the work – the how you found people – was fascinating. I thought it would be neat to bring people together who wanted to see each other and I could see how it could help people. The idea kept floating around in my mind until I finally decided when I moved here about a year ago.”

Kramer pivots in his chair several times to field calls.

“Professional Locating Service,” he says, reaching for a pencil. “Uh huh. Uh huh. What’s her name? How long ago? What can you give me to go on?”

“Navy guy,” he says hanging up the phone. “Just got back from a cruise and the little lady is gone. So’s all the furniture. He knows where she works but they won’t tell him anything. And he knows her mother’s number. Shouldn’t be all that hard. Couple of phone calls should do it. It’s all how you ask.

“People think finding someone or something is like finding a needle in a haystack. You’d be surprised how easy it is. All you have to do is follow a few simple rules.”

Kramer’s Rules:
• Never use the words “trying to locate”.
“Scares the hell out of people. That’s much too businesslike and threatening,” he says. “People just recoil from that. What you want to do is ‘Get in touch with.’”

• Never do anything that would get anyone hurt, especially yourself.
“People have this image of me sitting in a car at midnight on a stakeout, eating a sandwich and drinking coffee. At midnight, I’m home sleeping.
I’m not a private eye. Whenever I tell people what I do, they ask “Do you beat up people or get beat up?’ Not me. I’m a coward.”

• Your phone book and library are your best friends.
“You’d be surprised what you can find using basic things like phone books and records.”

• Always be nice to mother.
“No matter how old someone is, I don’t care if they’re 47, chances are mom knows where they are. If you talk to her really nicely, she’ll usually tell you what you want to know. But you got to know how to ask.”

• Use common sense first. Then use your imagination.

• Never lie
“Well, little white ones are OK. But nothing big. You have to live with your conscience.”

• Always get your money before you hand over the info.
“Maybe that should be Rule Number 1.”

KRAMER CLAIMS he has a batting average of “.600 to .650.” But sometimes a client wishes Kramer wouldn’t be so successful. Like the young guy who hired Kramer to find out where his old girlfriend was. Kramer found her in the penthouse suite of a hotel celebrating her honeymoon.

“Those are the breaks,” he says. “I ask people if they’re sure they want to get involved. But if they do, you can usually locate the information they want with very little information to work with. One woman called me and wanted me to find her husband. She thought he was in Hawaii. She had no address. But I thought, “Hawaii. Maybe he has a boat.’ Sure enough.

“Then I found out he was in some yacht race. ‘Yacht race, I thought… must be rich. Probably has a phone on board.’ Sure enough. So I called him. He told me exactly when and where he was arriving in San Francisco. His wife was waiting when he got there.”

Kramer works on a sliding-fee scale based on what a client wants to pay because sometimes charging an hourly rate would be prohibitive and other times “it’s so easy it’s ridiculous.”

Like the time a 72-year-old man enlisted Kramer to see if three of his cousins were living so he could include them in his will.

“I was lying on the sofa watching a football game when he called,” says Kramer. “He tells me he has one cousin’s name who lives somewhere in Indiana but he doesn’t know where. The other two are married and he doesn’t know their names.

“I started calling large cities in Indiana and asking information if they had anyone with that name listed. I called Fort Wayne and then Gary. Sure enough. I say ‘Hey, where are cousins so and so? He gives me their phone numbers. About 10 minutes later, I’m on the phone with the old guy giving him the information. I never moved off the sofa.”

About the only thing Kramer can’t seem to find are his car keys, cigarette lighter or motorcycle helmet. If it can be lost, Kramer can lose it. “I have my own locating service,” he says, referring to his girlfriend.  “Without her, I couldn’t get out of the house.”

FOR NOW, he doesn’t have to worry about getting out of the house. But in the future, Kramer envisions moving his business to a real office.

“It’s got a lot of possibilities,” he says. “It’s not the sort of thing that you’re going to make a million dollars at. But it could easily grow into a full-time business with a staff of trained people working for me. People are always going to need the services of someone like me, right?”

Kramer turns to answer his phone again.

“Professional Locating Service. Uh huh. Uh huh. When? Where? No problem.”

“Guy wants me to find an old marine buddy of his from ‘Nam,” he says, replacing the phone. “The last time he saw him was ’69. He thinks his buddy lives in North Carolina or South Carolina.

“Shouldn’t be that tough,” says Ken Kramer, with a smile. “After all, he did eliminate 48 states for me.”