Tag: background checks

Background Checks for Employers and Landlords or Property Managers are an important tool to be used during the decision making process.

Employers can find out criminal background records on prospective employees as well as credit reports on employees that are to be trusted with company money. These reports will give the hiring manager insight into the character of the applicant before making offers of employment.

Landlords or Property Managers can run credit checks, eviction records and criminal records on prospective tenants to help ensure that they only rent out to the best tenants. This can help reduce the risk of property damage, not getting paid rent on time and on having to go through eviction proceedings themselves.

AAA Credit Screening Services LLC was founded in 1996 in Houston, TX and provides credit reports, criminal reports, driving records, drug testing, nanny background checks, consumer credit reports, tenant background checks, employment background checks and more nationwide. For more information visit www.bestcheck.com or call 1-888-282-0447

Free Background Checks

If you search the internet, there are many companies that offer what seems to be “free background checks” for you to get information on just about anyone, a boyfriend, your sister’s best friend, tenants, employees and more! It all looks great, who doesn’t want something for free?

You have to ask yourself what you get, though, because we all know the age-old saying: “there’s no such thing as a free lunch!” and that hold true for background checks as well.  These websites make you go through the motions, have you put in  information, shows you a bar as it is “searching” for your information, and even asks you questions about the person while doing it to make sure their search is more “accurate”.free-background-check.png

THEN – your report is ready and they ask for a credit card. Great, you’ve just spent 20 minutes waiting, so many of you just pay the fee to see the report.

The types of companies that will keep you on a line so long and then ask for money have some other concerns that employers and landlords may want to consider:

  • Is the information that you will receive accurate?
  • Am I allowed to have and use this information for employment or tenant screening purposes?

Those are just 2 of the basic questions of concern.  Accuracy of the reports are doubtful, because these companies use aggregate information from various sources without confirming the identity of the person in question and there is often problems with inaccurate information or mistaken identity, for instance a father with the same name as a son and the one’s criminal record may appear when the other has no criminal record.

This can cause a lot of problems for someone seeking employment or to rent property.

Legitimate background check companies use a variety of identifiers to make sure that the identity of the the person in question is verified.  Background check companies require the applicant to provide consent for the background check to be run along with an address history (that can be confirmed), a social security number, employment history, etc.

It is important to use background check companies that are FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) compliant to help ensure that only reports that are allowed to be used will be pulled for employment and tenant screening purposes.  This helps protect the employer and landlord from discrimination possible law suits based outdated or incorrect information.

Unfortunately FCRA compliant background check companies cannot run a check on your boyfriend or your sister’s best friend.  Reports can only be used for legitimate business purposes.

SO, there are no “free background checks” that can provide you with guaranteed accurate information.  Background check companies have to pay for the reports that they run and they therefor have to charge customers for those reports.

Contractor Background Checks

Anyone that owns property, a house, commercial building or rental property will need to have repairs or even construction done at some point in time. The questions is, can you trust the contractors that you want to use to do a good job? Are they a reputable company?

Contractor Background Checks

Contractor background checks can help property owners weed out the bad fly-by-night contractors and only do business with reputable businesses. Looking at a business’ credit history, incorporation information, years in business, bankruptcy records, etc. can help provide property owners with an insight into the business and their history as a contractor.

When hiring individuals to do work on a property, individual background checks can also be run, helping avoid unqualified individuals that may or may not take the money and run without completing the job.

During natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. unsuspecting property owners are especially vulnerable. Unfortunately fly-by-night companies pop up right after such events. They will drive through neighborhoods and try to pick up business wherever they can. Property owners are desperate for someone to help make repairs and will often fall victim to someone that promises quick repairs while more reputable companies have a waiting list.

AAA Credit Screening Services offers Contractor Background Checks and Tenant Screening Services for property owners, landlords and property managers.

Don’t Get Caught In Contractor Scams

Contractor Background Checks
Contractor Background Checks

Given all the active hurricanes this year, there has been a lot of damage to property and of course everyone wants repairs to be made as soon as possible.  Unfortunately there are scammers that want to cash in on people’s misfortune and therefor property owners will come in contact with many pop-up businesses that offer to fix everything, work with their insurance, etc.  Many of these companies are not legitimate businesses and will file claims against your insurance for work they didn’t even do, and when a property owner files a claim for actual work done, the insurance won’t pay out.  It is imperative that you only do business with legitimate companies and contractors that will not scam property owners out of their insurance money.  Running contractor background checks can assist with this matter.  Criminal Records run on individuals and business license checks and business credit checks run on contractor businesses can assist property owners in making informed decisions before allowing repairs to be made on their properties.  AAA Credit Screening Services has been in business since 1996 and can run these reports and more!

So-Called “Free” Background Checks

background checks
Free Background Checks Are Not Free

When looking for a background check service on any given search engine, what comes up time and time again in your search are the advertisements for so-called “free” background checks. This begs the question: why pay a background screening company, such as AAA Credit Screening, for their services, when you could simply pull a free report off of one of these websites? Listing their services as free and easy to use, wherein you can initiate a full search right off the homepage, these websites make it seem like a background check is just a simple click away!

Things that aren’t specified on the “free” background screening websites? What is actually included their “background checks.” Often, “background check” is a vague, catch-all term used by these companies; it is a term that often doesn’t even specify what the scope or purpose of a search is before you conduct it. It could be anything, from a public records search to a motor vehicle report, a county criminal report to a bankruptcy search. This can be confusing to anyone who needs a report for a specific purpose, such as to verify that an applicant does not have a criminal record, nationwide.

A second troubling aspect of these “free” services is their dishonest nature. The majority of these websites will allow a search to be initiated for free, show that there are records associated with an individual’s name, and then, upon trying to obtain more information, will prompt the user to pay money for the full report, which would show any actually relevant or necessary details. These details can be especially important to criminal reporting, such as whether the crime committed was driving 5 MPH over the speed limit or if it was armed robbery, whether the offender’s name was Jon J. Smith or John P. Schmidt, or whether the offender was found guilty or the case was dismissed.

For the rest of this article, visit our site at BestCheck.com

When Ordering A Background Check, How Far Back Will It Go?

If you are requesting a criminal record report for a prospective employee, you may wonder how far back the report that you will receive can go.  If you are using a consumer reporting agency such as AAA Credit Screening Services, then the answer is 7 years.  To comply with the laws of most states or counties, we provide background checks going back 7 years.
background screening
Consumer reporting agencies are governed by the

Fair Credit Reporting Act and the laws of the states and counties as to how far back they can report.  The limit is usually between 7 and 10 years, which should give you a good understanding of the applicant’s recent criminal history while complying with the guidelines for consumer protection.

AAA Credit Screening Services & napbs

background checks
AAA Credit Screening Services is a member of napbs

AAA Credit Screening Services is a member of napbs – The National Association of Professional Background Screeners providing customers with the best background checks possible with fast customer service and accurate, reliable information.  For more information visit our website at BestCheck.com