Facebook shuts down Graph Search; investigators scrambling for workarounds

On Thursday, June 6, as I went to one of my favourite tools for online investigation, the one hosted by Michael Bazzell, I instead found a warning saying the service is unavailable. I then jumped over to NetBootCamp, and even to StalkScan, also to be denied. Finally, I manually re-opened some old browser bookmarks on

Harmari announces Short Term Rental 10.3 Release

Harmari proudly announces the latest update to the Short Term Rental web portal version 10.3.  The following new features have been included in this release Dynamic interactive heat map providing real-time short term rental inventory data Improved duplicate detection combining image and meta-data Enhanced in-jurisdiction STR detection within 0.5 km of boundary-limit Enhanced County level

Beware the zombie short term rental listings!

Beware the zombies!  In light of Halloween today, many of our clients are not aware that short term rental listings can be in a state of inactivity while on the surface seeming to be active.  This phenomenon is termed “zombie listings”.  While the earthly zombies have pale grey skin, various facial disfigurations, and general ghastly

Odometer fraud case law – Ohio

Harmari Search was again critical in evidence presented in court related to odometer tampering in Montgomery County, Ohio. The victim reported purchasing a vehicle for $2300 which the seller claimed had 140,000 miles on it, but in fact had been rolled back from 180,000 due to service records obtained by the victim.  The vehicle was

Identify Illegal Short Term Rental Properties

Many reasons exist why a short term vacation rental (STR) property may be considered illegal.  From a municipal government standpoint, it could be against ordinance to operate a short term rental in a particular zoning area.  Even if a short term rental operator has a permit, by having more people over than the maximum occupancy,

5 Tips for issuing Short Term Rental Permit Numbers

When municipalities seek to regulate short term rentals, often something that is overlooked is the permitting system.  In fact the permit number has significant value to Code Compliance departments that have to make sure everyone’s on the same level playing field.   Here are some suggestions on how to design permit numbers: Always put the year