Employment Background Check Errors

Key Takeaways

• Employment background check errors are any inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, false, outdated, or unreportable information in an employment screening report
• These errors can cost you a job offer, promotion, professional license, or security clearance, or get you fired or deactivated from a current position
• Common reporting mistakes include false criminal records, mixed files, expunged records, and employment history errors
• The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) gives you the right to challenge inaccurate employment background reports and hold screening companies accountable
• If errors aren’t corrected or they cause you harm, a background check lawyer helps you get corrections and compensation

What Are Employment Background Check Errors?

An employment background check error is any inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, false, outdated, or unreporatable information in an employment background. This type of screening is run on job candidates during the hiring process or on current employees during post-employment screenings.

Employment background check reports play a significant role in all aspects of employment-based decision-making by human resources departments, business owners, managers, and others, including decisions about hiring, firing, promotions, placements, transfers, clearances, and deactivations. (How do you know if you failed an employment background check?)

Errors in employment background check reports lead to unfair and unwarranted decisions that have direct, immediate, and harmful impacts on job candidates and employees across various industries.

Industries Impacted by Employment Background Check Errors

Because most industries rely on some form of pre-employment screening process, employment background check errors can impact people in almost any career or profession. Some examples include:

1. Healthcare: doctors, nurses, EMTs, at home caregivers
2. Education: teachers, aides, coaches, bus drivers, volunteers
3. Childcare: daycare workers, camp staff
4. Financial Services and Banking: financial advisors, accountants, bank employees
5. Trucking and Aviation: commercial truck drivers (CDL), airline pilots
6. Rideshare and Delivery: rideshare drivers and delivery drivers
7. Government and Defense: military personnel, federal employees, and contractors
8. Technology: IT and software engineers, cybersecurity professionals
9. Policing and Security: police officers, security guards

How Employment Background Check Errors Can Hurt Your Career

Employment screening inaccuracies can lead to serious consequences for people who require them for a job, promotion, or clearance. If you experience any of these common consequences of employment background check errors, you should consider speaking with a lawyer for background checks.

• WRONGFUL EMPLOYMENT DENIALS. Whether you’re looking for long-term or short-term employment, you can be flagged as a hiring risk and denied.
• LOST PROMOTIONS. No matter how much of an asset you’ve become to your boss, your business, or your team, screening mistakes can block you from the promotion you deserve.
• RESCINDED JOB OFFERS. You’ve already received an offer…conditioned on passing an employment background check. You weren’t worried, but that’s because you had no idea about reporting errors.
• PROFESSIONAL LICENSING ISSUES. Your hard-earned licensing can work against you if an employment report shows untrue ethical or criminal complications or false disciplinary action.
• SECURITY CLEARANCE PROBLEMS. Passing a high-level security clearance is impossible if your background check turns up false facts.
• 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.
• DAMAGE TO REPUTATION. Unfounded and false criminal accusations or incorrect employment history can damage your reputation.
• FINANCIAL LOSSES. Lost income or salary increases, costs for additional employment searches, and other financial losses.

Common Types of Background Check Errors

These are the types of mistakes we most often have to fix in the world of employment background screening.

1. Mixed file errors: Your background check information is combined with someone else’s information because of a similar name, birthdate, or Social Security Number
2. Inaccurate personal information: wrong names, addresses, or Social Security numbers
3. False criminal records: criminal record errors include wrong charges, incomplete information, unspecified outcomes, misleading information, reporting expunged or sealed records, false sex offender or national watchlist status, and other mistakes
4. Employment history errors: inaccurate details about dates and names of employers and wrong information about employment status
5. Education and licensing errors: wrong information about your education history or professional licensing status
6. Dupicate entries: the same entries appearing multiple times as exact duplicates or being reported repeatedly in slightly different ways
7. Expunged or sealed records:  these records should not appear on an employment background check
8. Outdated information: data that was never updated in public records or should have aged-off your report
9. Inaccurate driving record: wrong informatoin about accidents, motor vehicle-related violations, and licensing status
10. Identity theft-related: inaccurate financial, criminal, or other details caused by identity theft and fraud

Background Check Errors at a Glance

What Causes Employment Background Check Errors?

Employment background check errors happen because of flaws in data gathering, sorting, processing, and review procedures. Employment background check companies purchase consumer data from companies called “furnishers” and from companies called “data aggregators.”

The furnishers are the organizations and entities you have direct connections with- like prior employers, universities attended, etc. The data aggregators are third-party companies (you don’t have connections with) that collect, sort, and sell data from other companies, court records, and public records.

Background check companies use automated systems to do their own sorting and reporting of the data. The volume, scope, and scale of this data handling is massive and errors happen all the time. Once an error gets into the data stream at any point, it spreads quickly.

Top Causes Include:

• Clerical mistakes and data entry errors
• Mismatching, gathering, and sorting errors
• Identity theft errors
• Not updating systems or relying on old information
• Wrong data sent by the companies and organizations that provide it
• Poor investigation procedures
• Over-reliance on automated systems and lack of adequate human review

Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

In response to the high incidence of consumer reporting mistakes, federal lawmakers passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to protect consumers.

The FCRA applies to all consumer reporting agencies, which are the companies that create consumer reports, including credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion), background check companies, tenant screening companies, insurance reporting companies, and others.

Whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates.

The FCRA also gives you the right to:

• Have an accurate credit report
• Review your background check report at the time that it’s run
• Know which data in a background check report was used to deny you an opportunity
• Dispute background check errors
• File lawsuits against the responsible parties
• Seek compensation for harm suffered
• Make the consumer reporting agency pay for your legal costs and fees

In fact, the FCRA plays such a critical role in protecting consumers from background check errors, the lawyers who help fight these mistakes are frequently called FCRA lawyers.

Can I sue for employment background check errors?

Yes. Background check errors violate your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which gives you the right to dispute errors and file a lawsuit if your dispute is unsuccessful or you experience harm as a result of the error. A background check lawyer sifts through the documents, data, and disputes to determine if a lawsuit is the right option and the best option based on the facts.

What To Do If You Discover an Employment Background Check Error

You should dispute the error, relying on your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If needed, you should file a lawsuit to get corrections and compensation.

How to Dispute an Employment Background Check Error

Taking these steps to dispute employment screening errors will set you on the path toward recovery.

1. Get copies of your background screening report. You have a right to receive and review a copy of your report at the time that it’s run. If you didn’t receive a copy automatically, you can request one directly from the background check company.
2. Review your report for mistakes. Carefully review your employment background check report. Go through line by line, highlighting or clearly marking any errors in your personal, financial, criminal, and other details. You are looking for any inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, outdated, duplicate, or unreportable information.
3. Gather evidence. You’ll need to include copies of supporting documents and reference them in your dispute letter.
4. Write a dispute letter. Prepare a clear and thorough dispute letter, listing specific errors, explaining why the information is wrong, and describing the evidence you have to support your position. What is wrong, why it’s wrong, and what proof you have.
5. Submit your dispute. You file a background check dispute with the company that created the report using their online dispute portal or mailing address. We recommend filing via certified mail to preserve all of your legal rights and create a paper trail that is under your control, including proof of receipt.
6. Keep copies of everything. Maintain a copy of the letter and the documents for your file, along with the mail receipt and any adverse action notice and communications with your employer or prospective employer.
7. Track the timing. The screening company has 30 days to respond in most instances.
8. Consider legal action. You can explore legal options with a background check lawyer at any point in the process, including the option to file a lawsuit and seek compensation.

Common Employment Background Check Companies

Companies in the business of producing employment background check reports are part of a group of companies called consumer reporting agencies. These are the companies regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act that can be held accountable for how they handle your data.

• HireRight
• First Advantage
• Checkr
• Sterling
• Accurate Background
• Cisive
• GoodHire
• IntelliCorp
• Employment Screening Resources (ESR)
• Verified First

Major Employers Impacted By Employment Background Check Errors

• Amazon, Amazon Flex, Walmart, Target
• FedEx, UPS, Spark Driver, Shipt
• Home Depot, Lowe’s, Costco
• Uber, Uber Eats, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, Grubhub
• JB Hunt, Schneider, Swift Transportation
• HCA Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, CVS Health, Walgreens, UnitedHealth Group
• JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Capital One
• Lockeheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics

How Consumer Justice Can Help

Our employment background check lawyers stand out from the rest. We have one of the largest consumer reporting law firms in the nation for a reason.

• have extensive FCRA experience
• deeply familiar with the consumer reporting and investigation process
• know precisely which evidence supports various claims
• skilled legal research team
• know how to negotiate with consumer reporting agencies
• know when to file a lawsuit, have a team of highly experience trial attorneys, belong to consumer
• FCRA experience
• Investigation process
• Gathering evidence
• Negotiating with reporting agencies
• Litigation when necessary
• Contingency-fee model

When Should You Contact an FCRA Lawyer?

Correcting employment background check errors is something you can do on your own and many people have successful outcomes. However, what should be simple can also be turned into a complicated and convoluted process by the background screening companies and other companies involved.

Reasons to Contact an FCRA Lawyer

• Your dispute is ignored
• Your dispute is not adequately investigated
• The information in dispute is falsely confirmed as accurate by the rental screening company
• The information in dispute is removed but returns again

What Does an Employment Background Check Error Lawyer Do?

1. Supports the entire process. An employment background check error lawyer navigates the entire process with you, from the first minute you realize there’s an error until the final moment when you get corrections and compensation.
2. Researches and explains the law. Understanding the specific facts of your situation in light of the applicable law are how a lawyer builds a strong claim. A lawsuit should go after the screening company using every possible legal option available.
3. Understands the problems. An experienced background check lawyer has seen, heard, and handled every type of reporting error.
4. Anticipates legal challenges. A lawyer knows the tactics used by the screening companies and other companies to delay doing anything to fix reporting errors.
5. Provides personalized legal guidance. A lawyer helps you review and understand your background check report, where the information is coming from, identify and gather necessary evidence, craft and file legally sound dispute letters, and advise you of your rights and best practices along the way.
6. File a strategic lawsuit. If errors aren’t corrected or the fallout persists, a lawyer files a background check lawsuit to hold the consumer reporting agency accountable.
7. Seeks compensation. If you’ve been harmed by reporting errors and you’re entitled to compensation, a lawyer knows how to make the claim and maximize the potential outcome.

How Much Does an Employment Background Check Lawyer Cost?

The Fair Credit Reporting Act contains a fee-shifting provision which allows you to get legal help from an attorney without paying anything upfront or out of pocket. If you work with a background screening lawyer who uses this fee model, the background check company pays your legal expenses when you successfully challenge them.

You can also get a free consultation so that you pay nothing to have your case evaluated by a lawyer.

Key Takeaways on Costs

• Free consultation
• No out-of-pocket attorney fees
• Fee-shifting provisions under the FCRA
• Recovery of attorney fees from defendants when permitted by law

Contact Consumer Justice Law Firm

We have one of the largest consumer reporting law firms in the nation for a reason. Our team of experienced consumer protection attorneys are dedicated to protecting your consumer rights under the FCRA.

If you’ve been harmed by employment background check errors, reach out for a free consultation and personalized legal action plan from Consumer Justice Law Firm.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a background check contain mistakes?

Yes. Background checks, regardless of the purpose or the company running the check, can contain mistakes. This includes any inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, false, outdated, or unreportable information.

What should I do if a job offer was rescinded because of a background check?

Retain all documents and communications and contact an employment background check lawyer. If you’ve been directly harmed by background check errors, you likely have the grounds to file a lawsuit and get compensation.

How long do background check disputes take?

By law, the background check company must respond to a dispute within 30 days. So, it can be as fast as 30 days. However, if the dispute is ignored, errors remain, errors return, or you were harmed, you’ll likely need to file a lawsuit, which adds time.

Can expunged records appear on employment background checks?

No. Expunged and sealed records are not supposed to appear on employment background checks. If they do, it’s an error that you can dispute and which may be grounds for a lawsuit.

Is an employment lawyer the same as an employment background check lawyer?

No. Employment lawyers handle cases related to employment discrimination and unfair practices in hiring and firing within the control of the employer- internal factors that impact applicants and employees. Employment background check errors handle cases related to consumer reporting errors that impact employment decisions- external factors that impact applicants and employees, and specifically those factors related to third-party screening reports.

Can I get a free copy of my employment background check?

Yes. You are entitled to a free copy of your employment background check report at the time that it is run. If you don’t automatically receive one, you can request it from the consumer reporting agency that created it.

How do I know if the background check company broke the law?

If they violated your rights or ignored their obligations under the FCRA, it is very likely that the background check company’s actions were unlawful. A lawyer can help you sift through the facts to make a proper legal assessment.

Do I need a lawyer for a background check dispute?

No. You do not need a lawyer for a background check dispute. You can file a dispute on your own. However, you can consult with a lawyer prior to filing a dispute and they will handle that piece of the process for you. There may be advantages to reaching out early.

Did an employment background check error cost you a job or cause other harm? Get a FREE consultation. You pay $0 out of pocket. We only get paid when we win.

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