There are dozens of ways to get information about people on the Internet. If Friendster, MySpace and Facebook don’t give you enough dirt, there are private online detective services that ask for a small fee in exchange for a promise of a lot of information on whomever you choose to investigate.

My editor, Michelle Holmes, asked me if I wanted to sign up for an online detective service to see how well they work. These are the companies that claim to have information about anyone and everyone, and for a $29 fee, I too, would be able to become an anonymous researcher with all the information about everyone in my world. I was hooked.

Michelle handed me her credit card, and I signed up for Net Detective, a Florida-based company that claims to be the No. 1 spy on the Internet. I eagerly got to work plugging in my name, excited to see what the rest of the Internet world could discover about me.

There was a slight problem, however. According to Net Detective, I don’t exist. I pouted for a minute, then plugged my husband’s name into the spyware. His name, home phone number and address popped up immediately. I wasn’t too impressed, as the same information can be accessed in the local phone book. Net Detective told me that my husband is single, despite the fact that if I Google his name, our New York Times wedding announcement pops up and describes his occupation and marital status. But apparently, Net Detective’s spy skills aren’t quite up to par with Google, as it had nothing else on my husband and little on anyone else I tried.

For an extra fee, Net Detective said, I could get a better search. Sighing, I plugged in the credit card information again and paid about $10 for the extra info. Still no luck. I couldn’t find any more juice than I discovered the first time.

Peter Psarouthakis, disciplinary chair of the National Association of Legal Investigators and third vice president of the National Council of Investigation and Security Services, said he could have saved me my editor’s money.

“They call themselves private investigators because no one owns the word like a trademark,” he said. “That is not investigating, in my opinion.”

Psarouthakis said Net Detective appears to allow users to pay to search in their very basic database. If you actually find anything in there, he said, “you have to be real cautious. I’d encourage your readers that while it’s easy to jump on your computer and get the false sense of security, you really should be going to an expert to get the information.”

Unfortunately, Net Detective’s lack of talent wasn’t its only fault, as I soon discovered.

Several weeks after signing up for its services, my editor received her credit card bill. Net Detectives charged her again — but no one had used the service. Later, I looked on the Better Business Bureau’s report about Net Detectives and discovered that it did this to dozens of others.

But that wasn’t the end of my drama with Net Detectives. I started getting e-mails from people in Nigeria telling me they they needed my help to secure $8 million. If I helped them with a small amount of money, I could get a significant portion of the cash. I also heard from a man who said he found a few boxes in Iraq that were filled with more than $10 million. For 10 percent of the money, all I’d had to do was help him get the cash back to the United States.

The e-mails came directly to my inbox, as they were mailed to dbraff@post-trib.com. But they all addressed me as Michelle Holmes, my editor. By a simple connection of the dots, I figured out that Net Detective was either selling my information to scammers, or trying to scam me itself, knowing I was dumb enough to sign up for their services in the first place.

According to the Indiana attorney general, companies are legally allowed to sell or give away my e-mail information as long as their privacy policy permits it. So what Net Detectives is doing is allowed. I’m still angry, however, that the company chose to give my e-mail address to people who were trying to steal my money.

One of those men was John England. I e-mailed England, who had requested help with the $10 million he found in Iraq. “How did you get my e-mail address?” I asked him.

“I really do not know why you are so interested about where I found your e-mail address instead of talking about the deal, however, I found your e-mail address in an exclusive search from a Net Detective’s search,” he responded via e-mail.

I was right.

Indiana requires private detectives to be licensed, but an online detective is a different story.

Numerous calls and e-mails to the Net Detective CEO were ignored. So I guess I’ll do my own spying in the future.