UK Private Investigators [UKPI]
reviews and complaints

What utter nonsense! If any of these ridiculous clams were true, the company would not still be trading after 25 years! It would seem that there are some very envious people out there, who are probably in the same line of business. We have been using the services of UK Private Investigators for many, many years and have always received a courteous, efficient and professional service. It's such a shame that disgusting sites like this exist where people can post whatever they wish without having to prove that it's true - If you really want to check a company out, go to Trustpilot, as they actually ensure that most of the posts are true. Keep up the great work UKPI.

Dear Sir/Madam

I approached UKPI (11/11/2022) to trace my friend who cheated on me, and Tim took the case. I am totally unsatisfied with the quality of the services and report he provided.

I wrote an email with information and instructions, the first part contain 87 words about the basic information such as name, address. The second part contain 138 words about key information where I narrowed down the surveillance options (I emphasized these are the key information).

There are 2 reasons I would like to complain:

1. Tim completely ignored my second part of the email, and from the report he sent, he only conducted the search based on the first part of my email. This approach to do the task is the least amount of effort and the least useful approach for me.

2. Based on the report, Tim had completed the task in just a few days, but he didn’t send it to me promptly. Instead, when I chased him one month after, he sent it to me (20/12/2022). It gives me the impression that he completely forgot about my case. And more importantly, that one month gap means if there were any useful information occurred during this period, I had missed it.

I think Tim either has poor attitude or poor judgement when dealing with my case. He provided his services with passive attitude and least amount of effort.

1. I paid him the fee for 20 hours, he simply split 20 hours into 2 times 10 hours, so only sent deployment on 2 days, job done easily. Instead, he could have sent deployment on 4 days with 5 hours each, at least in this way he will improve the chance to observe more information.

2. He focused the task on the first part of my email maybe because it is easiest to complete the task from his side. But I specified in the email with my finding and the second part is more useful information. He argued that I didn’t “stipulate” the starting point, but I wrote more about my starting point I suggest, he simply neglect a customer instruction like this? Can’t he at least spend half of his resource on my second half of the email?

3. If there is anything he is not clear about my email, he could have asked me to clarify, but he didn’t communicate with me at all after opening my case. I didn’t ask further because I think they are professionals so I shouldn’t interfere their operations. But it turned out to be that he applied the approach which is least likely to observe useful information and he claimed this is the most logical approach!

4. The final report is too simple, only a few words and no supporting evidence at all. (e.g. no photos?)

The fee he charges does not worth his services at all at least for my case. I can’t raise a formal complaint as Tim is the owner of his company and there is no customer service team or regulator. He stopped replying to my email since I raised a formal complaint to him.

Many thanks for your time, kind regards.

(I have supporting evidence which are the email conversations we had, please let me know if I can send them to you. Just one question is my email instructions to him includes the person information I wanted to trace, please let me know how shall I share the evidence in this case)

I can't praise UK Private Investigators enough. I have just had some work done by them and the report was very detailed and delivered within the quoted time - don't believe the BS things below - they are a very, very good company! I have been running my own business for over 15 years and have seen for myself, how malicious some competitors can be! DO NOT believe the BS on here - it's just another [censored]ty site where "people" can leave fake and unsubstantiated comments.

08/12/2021 UKPI (Tim Burchell) provided erroneous contact information for an old friend, and refuses a refund. He refuses to grasp the concept that the phone number and email provided are inaccurate stating "It's registered to the subject" This business is fraudulent and a SCAM. Very cooperative until he gets your money.
This business has a "No trace no fee" policy. He provides information unrelated to the subject to justify the charges.

I saw a property advertised: penthouse for rent £600.00, i revieled the number 07432483493 where i messaged to make enquirys, he gave me his fathers mail address. i will attach what i recieved and the responce from Airbnb confirming a scam.
My name is Inês from the Airbnb support team.

I regret to inform you, but this type of agency, as they call it, is a fraud.

This is not how Airbnb proceeds and functions in relation to reservations.

All payments are made through our website and are not made through bank transfers. Incidentally, once a guest has made a reservation, we save the money and only after 24 hours of check-in do we send the money back to the host.

Please do not make any money transfer to this person, as I have already said is an attempt at fraud.orry i do not want this to happen to anyone.

From: robert douglas
Sent: 15 July 2019 09:16
To: Morris1, Dee
Subject: Re: Viewing please

Thank you for taking the time to look at my property. I am a civil engineer, originally from United Kingdom.I am looking for a responsible person that can take a very good care of my apartment. I am not after the money for the rent but want it to be clean all the time and the possible tenant will see the apartment as his
or her own and I hope that you can send me some personal information about yourself. The apartment is fully furnished with all necessary amenities (exactly like in the pics). It has dishwasher, washing machine and clothes dryer. There are two parking spots, a storage unit where you can deposit my furniture (if you don't like it and you want to use your furniture). Pets allowed.The monthly rent for the apartment is 600 pounds and also includes tax, so there is nothing else to be paid on top of that. I am looking for someone to rent anywhere from 3 month to 5 years or more.The only problem is that I had to move with my job back to Madrid, Spain where I am now. The property is being managed by Airbnb and they will handle the whole rental process.
If you want to know more about the rental process please get back to me and I will send you the step by step procedure.
The addres is : Benedictine Court, Coventry CV1 5SE

From: robert douglas
Sent: 15 July 2019 10:08
To: Morris1, Dee
Subject: Re: Viewing please

I fully agree to have you as my tenant. As I already told you in my first email Airbnb will handle the renting process in my behalf. I will have to contact the rental agency and provide them all the necessary information so they can start the rental process. For that I will need your full name current address, phone number and a copy if your id, passport or driver license.
You will receive a notification from the rental company containing all instructions that you need to follow and the invoice as well. To secure the apartment you will be instructed to deposit the first 2 months rent+1 month deposit to the agency and then you start paying rent from the third month you moved in. The keys and rental agreement will be delivered by their agent at your current address same day the deposit is paid, or you can meet with the agent at the flat. You will be given a 3 days inspection period from the day you receive the keys and lease agreement. If you are satisfied with the flat all you have to do is to sign the lease agreement and inform the agency. If you don't sign the tenancy agreement you receive a full refund of the deposit payment within the same day you made your decision. After you move in the flat the monthly rent will be sent directly to my bank account.
If you wish to proceed please provide the requested details and I will submit your application right away, and of course please make sure that you have the deposit payment ready.
I look forward to hearing back from you. Thank you for your time and nice cooperation.

Deidre Morris,

Deidre.[protected]@astonmartin.com

I had recently contacted UKPI to trace for an old friend of mine, I was given with wrong address in 24 hours. The address was in Turkey but non-exsited at all. A week later, I found my friend in a photo taken in a restaurant in Venice. I called the restaurant and had confirmed my friend is working there. I emailed Tim Burchell but no replied at all

Timothy Burchell who runs UKPI which is not actually the company name the company is called Vestigare Limited and the website for his scamming is https://www.ukprivateinvestigators.com

Timothy Burchell date of birth is 08/05/1968 and Timothy Burchell spends his time going on google and writing bad FAKE reviews about his competitors. Timothy Burchell is well known for doing this and when confronted he removes most of the fake reviews however on some websites such as scam report the reviews cannot be removed which is destroying hard working companies reputations.

Timothy Burchell at UKPI needs to be stopped and arrested for his crimes.

I contacted Mr Burchill to trace a person. He said he would be able to do it and if he was unsuccessful then there would be no fee to pay.
He emailed me a few days later to say that he had found the person and I should pay him to get the information. I paid him £125.00.

I wrote to the person and she was kind enough to write back to me to say she was the wrong person. Many people would have said nothing then I would be none the wiser thinking she did not want to make contact with me.

I sent Mr Burchell six emails asking for a successful trace or a refund. He dodged my requests and only responded when I told him I was going to make a claim through the small claims court. Since then he has done every delaying trick in the book eg cheques in the post, I posted it yesterday, let me know if it hasn't arrived...

Now I am going to court about it. Mr Burchell is a disgrace to the profession and a dishonest person.

WARNING - I instructed UK Private Investigators and Timothy Burchell to trace the current whereabouts of a debtor on a “no trace – no fee”.Within a day he reported back to me that he had found the debtor and if I paid him £145 he would release the details.

I paid and the details were released. I quickly learned that the debtor had nothing to do with the address given to me by Timothy and the elderly couple living there (for more than 30 years) had never heard of my debtor. I pointed this out to Timothy and suggested that he should try again (we all make mistakes!), Timothy chose to ignore all my calls and emails.

I have since found this thread online as well as the fact that Timothy is not running a limited company and what used to be UK Private Investigators was dissolved years ago.I should have done my due diligence against this disgrace of a human being; he is nothing but a fraudster.