Finders deals with an incredible amount of information when we are carrying out our work to locate missing wills and tracing the rightful beneficiaries to an estate.If you think about it, the kind of information that we will be dealing with will include notices relating to a deceased person such as certificates of birth, marriage and death, photographs, and newspaper articles, as well as telephone numbers, addresses and email addresses, passport numbers and other personal information.
We do use public records to seek out a person’s next of kin, but we are privy to a great deal of private information and when you are in the business of holding a lot of information about people, that can raise concerns.
In order to be able to assure our clients and customers that we take the responsibility of holding information very, very seriously, we hold an ISO/IEC 27001: 2005 for Information Security Management Systems.
Information security is incredibly important, especially these days. We are all familiar with the horror stories that we hear in the news about customer data which goes missing or is stolen. Like most modern-day businesses, we rely on computers to store sensitive customer information which is why we want to ensure that our information security systems are as robust as possible.
The ISO/IEC 27001 that we hold means that we have put in place ways and methods of storing information which are as secure as they can be and that we train our staff in the best practice methods of keeping information secure. We keep ourselves up to date with legislation so that we can swiftly implement any changes to data protection or security. Your information is safe with us because information security is part of our company culture.
Information security isn’t a priority with certain organisations though, and if you are seeking out an heir hunters organisation we urge you to check their credentials and to ensure that you do go with an organisation which has the formal procedures in place. Information is very precious – and very valuable to fraudsters, and unscrupulous organisations can pass on personal information to such people. It isn’t worth the risk.
Information security isn’t our only credential though. As you will know if you watched the last series of BBC Heir Hunters (series 8 finished on Friday 28 March), probate genealogy firms such as Finders take a fee for the work that they do to trace missing heirs. This is usually a percentage of the estate and this is something we make clear from the outset.
We are registered with the Office of Fair Trading (a body which enforces consumer protection) on the Consumer Credit Register so that we can offer you proof that you will be paying a fair and reasonable fee to us for the work we do on your behalf.
Again, unscrupulous firms may not make it clear how much this fee will be, and you may even find yourself out of pocket for any searches they undertake, or work they do on your behalf to find missing heirs, or proof of your right to inherit.
Of course, we think we have every right to be proud of the work that we do, but if you are looking for further proof of our services, check out the testimonials here and if you would like an informal chat through the services we offer, please do not hesitate to get in touch on our freephone (UK only) helpline 0800 085 8796.
