When a suspicious partner considers looking at their significant other’s phone, their first instinct is usually to check text messages, analyze call logs and perhaps search for a secret app like a fake calculator that hides illicit photos.
But according to Cassie, a private investigator and director of Venus Investigations, the latest trend for cheaters is much more innocuous and it involves using an app that just about everybody has.
Apparently, the humble Notes app that comes built-in with your iPhone, iPad and MacBook is becoming the new way for people to secretly communicate.
Here’s how it works.
Obviously Shared Notes weren’t designed for this, and they’re typically used for legitimate things like making a shared grocery list with a roommate – but like most technology, “people doing dodgy things will find a way to turn tech into a tool”, Cassie says.
How to tell if your partner is using Shared Notes
“You can tell a Note is a Shared Note by the little person logo next to the Notes title, if your partner gives you access to their phone,” Cassie explains.
On various social media platforms, people have gotten wind of this tactic, and have weighed in with their thoughts.
“I can’t imagine messaging anyone through the Notes app,” one person wrote on TikTok.
“I’m too lazy to be this creative,” a second admitted.
“I’m shook – I can’t believe this is a thing,” a third said.
Catching a cheater via Flybuys
Last week, Cassie took to TikTok to share the details of one of her “wildest” cases involving a cheating husband.
Cassie explained in the clip, “My client, the wife, wanted to find out how her husband was cheating. We were pretty sure he was up to something.”
The couple lived in Queensland, but her husband had been making frequent trips to New South Wales to visit his family – something he rarely did before.
Initially, the wife checked their joint bank accounts. She found transactions at Coles and Bunnings, but because there were no specific locations attached to them, she couldn’t prove anything.
Cassie advised her to check if they had any joint rewards accounts, such as Everyday Rewards or Flybuys.
They had a Flybuys account, so they opened the app, revealing all the transactions.
The purchases from Coles and Bunnings were listed with the suburbs where each store was located, and they turned out to be in a Queensland suburb where the husband’s ex-girlfriend lives.
In her TikTok caption, Cassie joked, “$10 off your shop but a very expensive divorce”.
