It’s no secret that bank account information isn’t as accessible to legal professionals, credentialed investigators, and asset due diligence researchers as other personal information. If it were merely expensive or inconvenient to obtain this information, professional information aggregators such as LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters would be able to hawk asset databases at their conference vendor booths, and we’d all be lining up in droves to subscribe.

After all, nothing tells a story like someone’s financial information. But at times, it can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

In this 3-part series, we share some old school methods developed by the National Check Fraud Center—including some new techno ideas—for legally obtaining bank account information.