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”.
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 This helps protect the employer and landlord from discrimination possible law suits based outdated or incorrect information.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.
