No Disappointment Hurts Like One That’s Undeserved. We Fix Background Check Errors.
Background check companies have a legal obligation to report accurate info about you and to correct every mistake. If only it were that easy…
- Denied a job, promotion, apartment rental, vacation rental, insurance product, or security clearance due to errors?
- We fight: LexisNexis, Uber, Checkr, RentGrow, HireRight, First Advantage, and more!
- We help everyday people recover. No out-of-pocket fees. We get paid when we win.
About Us
Advocates for Accurate Credit Reports & more
Founded by attorneys David Chami and Daniel Cohen, the Consumer Justice Law Firm put down shared roots in New York and Arizona before growing into a thriving nationwide consumer protection and employment law firm committed to fighting for fair treatment and accountability. The firm is stacked with top-tier legal talent on a mission to shift the power dynamic from big corporate carelessness to individual consumer justice. Our practice areas broadly cover the scenarios that most immediately and directly impact a consumer’s financial and overall well-being, such as credit reporting mistakes, background check errors, tenant screening errors, debt collection harassment, identity theft recovery, and labor and employment violations, including workplace discrimination.
One of our leading practice areas is helping clients recover from the harmful consequences of background check errors by upholding and protecting their rights under federal and state law. By focusing on consumer rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, we build the best case possible on your behalf. We’ll do everything the law allows to hold companies accountable for the role they play, correct their mistakes, and get you money.
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How Background Check Errors Harm You
First, understand that with the volume and frequency of background check errors, there is a very good chance that your background check will include incorrect information. Statistical estimates range from 50% and higher, with the National Consumer Law Center describing background check errors as “rampant.”
Incorrect background checks show false or old details, like wrong convictions or expunged records. Three of the most common types of background checks are:
1 Employment - conducted either during the pre-hiring process or periodically throughout employment 2 Tenant screenings - conducted during the application process for confirming eligibility to rent a house, apartment, or vacation rental 3 Insurance - conducted prior to issuance of an insurance policy in order to mitigate the risk of fraudulent claims.
Background check errors can harm you in any of the following ways and more:
Job rejections
Whether you’re a new candidate or a current employee, if a clean background is part of your assessment, you can be let go or passed up due to bad data. Ride-share and store shopper positions face frequent issues with wrong info.
Promotion denials
Opportunities for advancement can be limited by false information.
Rental denials
Whether you’re looking for a long-term rental for housing or a vacation rental for fun, you can be falsely flagged as a rental risk and turned away. People can actually be left unhoused by these errors, relying on family and friends for shelter.
Insurance denials
When you seek insurance or other financial products, some require a background check for approval, and you can be denied for falsely failing to meet the standard.
Security clearance rejections
Many career paths require a security clearance, sometimes at varying levels. Failing yours because the report is wrong is infuriating.
Reputational damage
Unlike other consumer mistakes, wrongful background check data can be reputation-destroying. Ever been wrongfully reported as a sex offender?
Mental and emotional distress
From missing out on long-awaited opportunities to losing sleep due to worry or being plagued by anxiety, the toll these errors take is real.
How it works
Steps To Take After Discovering Background Check Errors
Talk to a lawyer
The law upholds your right to accurate background data and obligates companies to investigate and fix their mistakes, but the system itself is broken. Investigations are frequently inadequate, and stalls, delays, and unfixed errors are common. A lawyer will clearly set out your rights, guide you through the dispute and recovery process, and get you compensation.
Dispute the errors
Carefully review your background check report, clarify which specific information led to your lost opportunity, and dispute any inaccurate, misleading, false, or unreportable data. If you’re working with us, we’ll handle this process for you. If you’re not, file your disputes via certified mail to preserve all of your legal rights.
Make them fix it
If you know that the data in your background check report is wrong, never accept their nonsense when they say they’ve investigated and confirmed that it’s right. This is a common outcome of shoddy internal investigations and does not meet their legal obligations to do the right thing. But a lawsuit usually gets the job done.
Legal Services
How A Background Check Error Attorney Leads You to a Full Recovery
Legal Guidance
Correcting background check errors shouldn’t have to be a complicated and convoluted process, but it frequently is. Working with an experienced attorney gives you the best shot at a full resolution and maximum compensation.
Here’s how we help you: (1) We know the law. We know the laws that protect you and how to go after these careless mega-corporations using every possible legal option available. (2) We know the problems. We’ve seen, heard, and handled every type of background check report error and put our full knowledge and resources into everything we do. (3) We know the tricks. We know the tactics used by these companies to delay doing anything to fix reporting mistakes. They’d rather convince you it’s a lost cause. We know otherwise. (4) We provide legal guidance. We help you gather necessary data and evidence, craft and file legally sound disputes, and advise you of your rights and best practices along the way. (5) We file a lawsuit. If your errors aren’t corrected or the fallout persists, we file a lawsuit to hold companies accountable. (6) We get you money. If you’ve been harmed by background check report errors and you’re entitled to compensation, we know how to maximize it.
Don’t underestimate the peace of mind that comes from knowing every next move is the right move toward recovery.
Background check data errors are the consequence of a fast and furious data industry that depends largely on the ability of monstrously large corporations to gather, process, and report data for tens of millions of individuals on a rolling basis. In the balance between speed and profit, accuracy is the first thing to go. And you pay the consequences. Because background check errors are part of a persistent, systemic problem, and because they cause genuine harm to people every single day, the federal government passed an important piece of legislation- the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to try to protect you.
We rely heavily on the FCRA to build the best possible cases and get the best possible outcomes. The FCRA gives you critical consumer reporting rights, including the right to: (1) review your background check at the time that it’s run, (2) know which data in a background check was used to deny you an opportunity, (3) dispute background check errors, (4) file lawsuits against the responsible parties, (5) seek compensation for harm suffered, and (6) make the wrongdoers pay for your legal costs and fees.
Understanding the FCRA
You Pay Nothing, They Pay Our Fees
One of the most important and least known facts about embarking on the background check error recovery journey is that you don’t have to pay out of pocket for legal help. The same laws that grant you rights, protect your interests, prevent further harm, and hold background check companies accountable for their mistakes, correction refusals, and inadequate investigations also say that the companies you sue have to pay your legal bills when you settle or win. Under the law, you should not have to spend your own money or take on debt to dispute errors and demand corrections of your data since you aren’t the one who created the problem in the first place.
At Consumer Justice, we respect this fee-shifting provision for the role it plays in our legal system, especially since it serves as an equalizer, bringing justice to everyone, including those who otherwise couldn’t afford to work with an attorney. We value each and every client and every case, and appreciate that the law has carved out a way to center equity and fairness in legal representation for consumers harmed by big business data errors.
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Hold Negligent Companies Accountable
Talk to us today to gain insight into the background check error recovery process and learn how we can help.