To find someone who owes you money, work outward in stages: start with the identifiers and records you already have, run the free public-records searches, pay a skip tracer if those come up empty, and — once you have a court judgment — use post-judgment discovery to force the debtor to disclose their address and assets under oath. Which tools you can use depends on where you are in the process, and the strongest ones only unlock after you’ve sued and won.
Start With What You Already Know
Every search runs on identifiers. Pull together the debtor’s full legal name including middle name or initial, date of birth, and any identification numbers you collected during the original transaction. A Social Security number from a credit application or employment record is the single most reliable way to distinguish your debtor from anyone else with a similar name. Store it securely and separately from anything you plan to file in court, because federal court rules require you to redact Social Security numbers to the last four digits in any public filing.1LII / Legal Information Institute. Rule 5.2 Privacy Protection For Filings Made with the Court
Then organize the paperwork that proves the debt: signed contracts, promissory notes, invoices, and records of the original transaction. These documents often carry details you overlooked the first time. A co-signer’s contact information. A reference on a credit application. Bank routing numbers from initial payments. Previous phone numbers, email addresses, and the last known residential address round out the file. The more data points you bring into the search, the faster you can cross-reference hits and confirm you’ve found the right person.
Free Public Records to Search First
Social media is the obvious first stop, and it works more often than people expect. A debtor who ignores your calls may still post geo-tagged photos, update their employer on LinkedIn, or check into businesses in a new city. Search every platform under every name variation you know, including nicknames and maiden names. Even a locked-down profile leaks information through friends’ public posts and tagged photos.
County tax assessor and property records websites let you search by name for real estate holdings. If the debtor has bought property in a new jurisdiction, the tax record shows the mailing address where the county sends the tax bill, which is sometimes different from the property address itself. These records are updated annually and are free to search in most counties.
Voter registration databases are underused. Many local election offices allow public name lookups that show where a person is registered to vote, and the information tends to be more current than utility records or an expired lease. Someone who registered after moving will often show up here before the new address appears anywhere else.
For a business debtor, search the secretary of state’s business entity database in any state where the debtor may operate. Those filings are public and typically list a registered agent with a physical address along with the principal office address. Even if the business has been dissolved, the registered agent on file may point you toward a current location.
Commercial “people finder” services aggregate voter records, property data, court filings, and other public records into a single report, generally for $20 to $75 per search. They can be a useful shortcut, but they’re only as current as their underlying sources, so treat any address they return as a lead to verify rather than a confirmed location.
When to Pay a Skip Tracer
When public records come up empty, professional skip tracers reach databases the general public cannot. The most valuable of these contain credit header data: the name, address, phone number, and employer information consumers provide on credit applications, stripped of account balances and payment history. Financial institutions may share this nonpublic personal information with authorized parties under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, provided the user has a permissible purpose such as collecting on a debt the consumer authorized.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 6802 – Obligations with Respect to Disclosures of Personal Information
Skip tracers also pull motor vehicle records. The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act allows access to state DMV data to obtain a corrected current address when information the individual previously submitted is no longer accurate, but only for specific purposes such as recovering on a debt or pursuing a legal remedy. Licensed private investigators can access this data for any purpose the statute permits.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2721 – Prohibition on Release and Use of Certain Personal Information from State Motor Vehicle Records
Hiring a private investigator typically requires an upfront retainer from a few hundred dollars to $1,500 or more, depending on case complexity and geographic scope. The resulting report consolidates the debtor’s current phone number, residential address, and active employer into a verified package you can use for service of process or wage garnishment. This is usually where creditors get their breakthrough on debtors who have genuinely tried to disappear, because a good skip tracer can interpret inconsistencies across databases that look like dead ends to a layperson.
Rules That Limit How You Search
If the debt is owed directly to you and you’re collecting in your own name, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not apply. The FDCPA defines a debt collector as someone whose principal business is collecting debts owed to another, or who regularly collects debts owed to others.4Federal Trade Commission. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act The moment you hire a collection agency or third-party collector, the FDCPA’s restrictions kick in and govern how that collector can search for the debtor.
Under the FDCPA’s location-information rules, a collector contacting third parties to find a consumer’s address cannot reveal that the consumer owes a debt, cannot contact the same third party more than once unless the earlier response was incomplete, cannot send postcards, and cannot use language or symbols suggesting the communication relates to debt collection. Once the collector knows the debtor has an attorney, all location inquiries must go through that attorney.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1692b – Acquisition of Location Information A violation by your hired collector can give the debtor a defense or counterclaim that undercuts your collection effort, so any agency or investigator you retain should understand these boundaries before starting.
After You Sue and Win: Post-Judgment Discovery
The most powerful search tools open up only after you have a court judgment. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 69 authorizes a judgment creditor to obtain discovery from any person, including the debtor, to aid in executing the judgment.6Cornell Law Institute. Rule 69 Execution The main tool under this authority is a debtor’s examination, sometimes called a supplementary proceeding, where the court orders the debtor to appear and answer questions under oath about their address, income, employer, bank accounts, and other assets.
This is where a creditor finally has leverage over someone who has been dodging calls and letters. The debtor must show up and answer truthfully. Lying is perjury. Ignoring the court order entirely can lead to a finding of civil contempt, which in turn can produce fines and, in jurisdictions that allow it, a bench warrant. You cannot jail someone for not paying a debt, but a court can jail them for defying an order to appear. That distinction is the pressure point that often forces a hidden debtor into the open.
You can also issue subpoenas to third parties such as banks and employers, compelling them to produce records that reveal the debtor’s current contact information, account balances, or recent payroll deposits.6Cornell Law Institute. Rule 69 Execution Filing fees for post-judgment motions and subpoenas vary by jurisdiction and commonly run $30 to $75 per filing, plus the cost of service. Private process servers charge $40 to $100 for standard service, with rush or same-day delivery adding $25 to $50.
If You Truly Cannot Find Them: Service by Publication
If you have exhausted every reasonable search and still cannot locate the debtor, most jurisdictions allow service of legal papers by publication, meaning a notice runs in a local newspaper for a set number of weeks. This is a last resort, and courts require proof you tried everything else first.
To get permission, you file an affidavit of diligent search describing every method you used: public records checks, skip tracing, social media searches, contact with known associates, and any other steps. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4 defers to state law for service by publication within the United States, so the specific requirements — which newspaper, how many weeks, what the notice must say — vary by state.7Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Rule 4 Summons Courts scrutinize these affidavits, and a vague description of your search will get the request denied.
Publication clears the legal hurdle of service so you can move to judgment-based tools like asset seizure and wage garnishment if the debtor ever surfaces. It does not actually locate anyone. The debtor almost certainly won’t see the notice, and you will likely get a default judgment you still cannot collect on without an address.
Watch the Statute of Limitations
While you’re searching, the clock is running. Every state sets a deadline for filing a lawsuit to collect a debt, and once that window closes you lose the right to sue no matter how much you’re owed. For debts based on written contracts, deadlines range from 3 to 15 years depending on the state, with 6 years being the most common. Oral agreements and open-ended accounts like credit cards often have shorter windows.
Many states pause the statute of limitations while the debtor is absent from the state, but this tolling protection is not universal and the rules vary. If your debtor left the state, research the tolling rules under the law that governs your agreement rather than assuming the clock stopped.
One trap to know about before you make contact: a partial payment or a written acknowledgment of the debt can restart the statute of limitations in some states. Getting a small good-faith payment may feel like progress, but in the wrong state it can reset a clock that was about to expire in the debtor’s favor and give you more time to collect the full amount. Understand your state’s rules on this before you agree to anything.