commercial locator service

[R. Butler]

Was having a discusison today about commercial locator service versus the SSA letter forwarding program. What types of information do private locator services have access to that the general public doesn't? How are they linking the SSN with the correct Joe Smith?

Thanks for any guidance.

[ESOP Guy]

I use a service called PBI for a number of years. It isn't so much that they have access to information that you don't have as much as they can perform a complete search for so much less then you can and document it well.

If you go with their full service package it is typically in the $20/person for low volume of searches. The cost goes down per person as the number of lost people goes up. It starts to get pretty cheap if you are looking for hundreds of people.

But what you get from them is one of two things:

1) An address they have sent a confirmation letter to and gotten a response to that letter so you have good reason to believe it is a good address

2) A close out letter explaining the steps used to find the person and that search failed. The steps taken meet the DOL's requirement for a complete search. They put out rules regarding that a few years back. The one exception is the DOL put the rules out back when the IRS still did a forwarding program. One assumes the DOL won't hold you to needing a program that doesn't exist. What I like about this is you now have documentation that you did a good search so whatever you do to the balance of the lost person you have solid evidence of the a good search and they are lost.

If I did a search like that for a client I would spend more then $20/person. Solid paper trail of the search for the client's records. I have never had a client's ERISA attorney come back to me and say the search wasn't good enough to justify treating the person as lost after a PBI search process.

Just to be clear I don't work for PBI and I an not on commission. I just like their process.

[Guest KristenE]

A consultant prepared a written procedure that we have yet to use, but she recommended www.employeelocator.com. Which will provide a Title 29, Part 4050.4 Compliant "Diligent Effort" report is $10 per missing participant and with results usually within 24 Hours. You can effortlessly order your search over the internet and your HAND PROCESSED & REVIEWED FOR ACCURACY (not machine generated) results will be e-mailed back to you usually with 24 hours. The consultant works with two other firms that have successfully used this service.

[BG5150]

FYI, you can charge the cost of locating a participant to his or her account.

[david rigby]

Several previous discussion threads on similar topics. You might try the Search feature, using a keyword such as "missing" or "locator".