Employment Background Check Errors

Key Takeaways

• Employment background check errors include inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, false, outdated, or unreportable information
• 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 cause you harm, an background check lawyer will help you get corrections and compensation

What Are Employment Background Check Errors?

An employment background check error is a data error included in a background check report during the job application and hiring process or during follow-up screenings run on current employees. Employment background check errors include any inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, false, outdated, or unreporatable information.

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 decision about hiring, firing, promotions, placements, transfers, clearances, and deactivations.

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.

Jobs Impacted by Employment Background Check Errors

Because most industries rely on some form of pre-employment screening process, these errors can impact people in almost any career or profession. However, some industries rely more intensively and consistenly on employment background checks, which increases the likelihood of encountering more screening errors.

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 Transportation: commercial truck drivers (CDL), airline pilots
6. Rideshare and Delivery: rideshare drivers and delivery workers
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

By law the information in an employment background check report must be accurate. Accordingly, employers assume the truth of the information presented in the report and rely on it to make critical decisions about current and prospective employees. Unfortunately, you don’t usually know about these types of errors until an adverse decision is made against you- in other words until you suffer employment-related and other harm.

• DENIED EMPLOYMENT. Candidates in search of a new position learn they’ve been unexpectedly dropped from consideration due to information in an employment screening, no matter how strong their resume or how qualified they actually are.
• LOST PROMOTIONS. Hard work and long hours- 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 gotten so far into the process, you 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. If professional licensing is required, years of hard work and months prepping for professional exams can amount to nothing when the employment screening suggests moral, ethical, or criminal complications.
• SECURITY CLEARANCE PROBLEMS. If your career requires the ability to pass a high-level security clearance but your background screening turns up false facts, it can be career-ending.
• REPUTATION DAMAGE. Imagine that not only does your employment background check result in a rescinded job offer, but also that the reason your job offer was rescinded is because the report falsely put you on the sex offender registry.
• MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL DISTRESS. It’s hard to eat, sleep, and stay mentally and emotionally healthy after unexpectedly and unfairly losing out on income, a career, advancement, or other opportunity.
• FINANCIAL STRESS. If you can’t get or keep a well-paying job, then your income flow takes a major hit, while the cost of living grows and bills pile up.

Common Employment Background Check Errors

Why Employment Background Check Errors Happen

Employment background check errors happen because of flaws in the data gathering, sorting, processing, and review procedures. To understand the errors, you need to understand the basic process: Employment background check companies purchase consumer data from companies called “furnishers” and from companies called “data aggregators”.

The furnishers are the companies you directly do business with- like credit card companies, mortgage lenders, leasing companies. The data aggregators are third-party companies (you don’t directly do business with) that collect, sort, and sell data from other companies and from public records sources. Then the background check companies do their own gathering, sorting, and reporting of the data for each consumer (which means you).

• Massive Automated Data Collection. The process involves incomprehensible volumes of data for millions of consumers annually. Automated processes make this feat possible with speed and scale, but the parameters can be too broad and errors can go undetected until it’s too late.
• Name Matching Problems. Automated systems are not always good at distinguishing names that are the same, similar, having different middle names or initials, or are distinguished by markers like Jr., Sr., and III.
• Inaccurate Public Records. Public records can be riddled with data entry errors, typos, and outdated information. These mistakes get pulled into the massive data streams and get presented as facts.
• Data Aggregator Mistakes. These companies make matching and identity mistakes that get passed along to the background check companies along with outdated and inaccurate public record data.
• Poor Investigation Procedures. At any stage of the process, from the furnishers, public records databases, and data aggregators to the employment background check companies, investigation procedures are woefully lacking. Very little human review means little chance of disrupting the automated systems that created or enabled the errors in the first place.
• Failure to Update Records. Furnishers, public records databases, and other sources fail to update records in a timely manner, leading to all kinds of outdate information feeding into a data stream that reports at lightning speed.

Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a federal law that gives you very important rights when it comes to protecting the privacy and accuracy of your data. Since consumer reports, like employment background check reports, play an outsized role in our lives, having legal protections is critical. Knowing what they are and how to enforce them is even better.

• Right to Accuracy: You have the right to have an accurate employment background check, The consumer reporting agency that runs it has to use reasonable efforts to assure maximum possible accuracy.
• Right to Receive Notice: If information in your background check report leads to an adverse (negative) decision about your employment, you have the right to receive an Adverse Action Notice from the employer. It should explain your FCRA rights.
• Right to Review Your Report: You have the right to review your employment background check report at the time that it’s run. You can request a copy from the screening company if you don’t automatically receive one.
• Right to Dispute Errors: You have the right to dispute employment background check errors. Every background screening company has a system allowing for disputes.
• Right to Reinvestigation: The background check company is obligated to investigate your dispute (called “reinvestigation”) and respond, typically within 30 days.
• Right to Damages for Violations: If you get ignored, the errors continue or return, or you suffer harm due to errors, you have the right to file a lawsuit and seek compensation.
• Right to Have Legal Fees Paid: If you opt to work with a background check lawyer to resolve your dispute and get corrections and compensation, the FCRA shifts the responsibilty to pay your legal costs and fees over to the background check company.

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.

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.

There are many, but these are a few commonly used ones:

• HireRight
• First Advantage
• Checkr
• Sterling
• Accurate Background
• Cisive
• GoodHire
• IntelliCorp

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.

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