Tag: tenant screening

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  This helps protect the employer and landlord from discrimination possible law suits based outdated or incorrect information.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

Happy Thanksgiving from AAACSS

This Thanksgiving, as always, AAA Credit Screening Services is thankful for all our customers. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you.

Please note, our offices will be closed in observance of Thanksgiving Thursday, November 28 through Sunday, December 1, 2019.

Tenant Background check – What Property Managers need to know

Property managers and landlords may be concerned with their tenant applicant’s past behavior as a tenant, including any eviction record proceedings that were filed against them, but also their criminal record and credit history. Running complete tenant background check reports can provide landlords with insight into the applicant’s character and sense of responsibility before signing lease contracts.

According to a consumer credit bureau survey, only half of landlords routinely conduct a rental background check before handing over the keys to a new tenant. Failing to run a complete tenant background check can result future eviction proceedings, failure to pay rent or time and even damage to the property.

Tenant Background Check Reports:

Credit Reports – these reports will include the applicant’s credit score and history of payments and balance over the past 7 years. Tenants that have history of delinquency on bills are likely to be late on rent or even fail to pay.

Criminal Records – reports include the past 7 years in criminal convictions and will also include a sex offender registry search.  While small misdemeanor convictions may not pose a threat to the property or landlord, there are other crimes including felonies that landlords may need to make their rental decisions.

Eviction Records – these are civil court record proceedings filed against tenants to evict them for various reasons.  In the past these reports were part of credit checks, but they are no longer offered, making it necessary to run them separately. Statistically, people that have been evicted in the past are more likely to be evicted again.

Landlord Reference Checks – calling and talking to previous landlords can help landlords and property managers determine what type of tenant the applicant has been in the past and give insight into their character.

Employment Verification – calling current and previous employers can confirm employment to make sure that the applicant is still employed and verify that the information and timelines on their application is accurate.

In conclusion, running a comprehensive tenant background check on each applicant that will occupy a property can provide landlords and property managers with an informative review of the person’s character, credit history and raise possible red flags that the landlord would want to avoid.  AAA Credit Screening’s tenant verification services can provide landlords with these reports and can customize packages to fit client needs.

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

AAA Credit Screening Featured Business News Daily

Best Background Check
Best Background Check Companies 2017

AAA Credit Screening Services is happy to announce that it has been listed on Business News Daily’s Best Background Check Services 2017. AAA Credit Screening Services has provided background checks and credit reports since 1996 and strive to provide fast, reliable reports to all our business and property management customers. We provide background checks for employment screening as well as tenant screening services and have recently added contractor background checks to our vast list of services available to customers nationwide.

Welcome to the BestCheck.com Blog for AAA Credit Screening Services

best backgroud checks
Welcome to the AAA Credit Screening Blog at BestCheck.com

AAA Credit Screening Services strives to keep our customers up to date with changing employment and credit reporting laws and regulations and this blog will provide our clients with the information needed to run their reports as well as useful topics about employment screening, tenant screening, credit reports and more.