Preparing for a date in New York can be labor-intensive. Right perfume or cologne? Check. Smart clothes? Check. Report from private investigator? Check.
In the city's hot-and-heavy dating scene, the latest trend for singles is to check exactly who they are meeting for dinner with the help of the city's famed private detective agencies.
Many New Yorkers are no longer taking their romantic prospects at their word, instead running extensive background searches that cover criminal records, education, previous jobs and address history.
Sitting in his private office on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Skipp Porteous runs Sherlock Investigations. He gets numerous requests from wealthy clients to run background searches on their potential dates.
He charges US$500 for a comprehensive background check or US$195 an hour for a two-person team to carry out a surveillance.
It can be worth it. One recent client's date had claimed to be a published author and a college professor. Porteous proved he was lying. Another woman's prospective husband was eager to join a free dating service until he realized that the "woman" who had been e-mailing him the generous offer was in fact Porteous, using a false name.
The explosive growth of online dating in the US is responsible for the increased use of background checks. Whereas online dating is still seen as slightly desperate in much of Europe, in the US it has become a normal part of life. It has also made it easier for people to create fake identities and to invent jobs, homes and lifestyles that they simply do not have.
Some online dating Web sites now conduct background checks on those who sign up to weed out people who are potentially violent or dangerous.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese