I never quite understood the importance of background checks until I started working for Crimcheck.com. After beginning my new job I soon learned that the easiest way to ensure a safe work environment begins with one of the first steps, the background check. Read more…

On June 10, 2008, Connecticut enacted a law which will require businesses that maintain personal information (e.g. Social Security number (SSN), driver’s license number, account number, or credit/debit card number), to, among other things: Read more…

Info Network Intl., the parent company of several online dating sites has announced that it will begin conducting background checks on their prospective clients. Read more…

Digg and other social news sites are very popular web services that are used by millions of people. People submit stories and they are voted on by other members, they can also make comments on these stories. Unfortunately if your company is in the public eye some of these stories can be bad PR for your company or even your company leadership. You may even have an internal leak posting stories about your company. So, how do you track down the source of these PR nightmares or determine what employees might be disparaging your company? Short of hiring a computer forensics expert there are some simple ways to track stories about your company Read more…

One question I am asked frequently is ‘What is the worst lie you have ever seen on a resume?’ I will relate a story about an individual that we were vetting for a large corporation for a c-level position. Read more…

Do you know the I-9 Status of your employees? How about their visa standing? Read more…

How long does a background check take?

That depends on the components ordered and what type of check you are doing. For employment purposes a background check can take anywhere from 24 hours to 1 week. Our company generally gets a background check request back to the client within 48 to 72 hours. That would include a criminal record check, motor vehicle report, employment verification, and education verification.

Read more…

An essential step in creating and maintaining a safe workplace environment is to implement a drug free workplace policy.  A drug free workplace policy is a written employment policy that clearly states the expectations of the company that all employees remain drug and alcohol free.  The mixing of drugs and alcohol with work can be the cause of a variety of damages, including personal and financial injury.  In order to enforce the company’s drug free workplace policy, employee drug testing must be conducted.

Employee drug testing is a complicated subject.  Not only are there numerous methods of performing effective employee drug testing, there are also many laws that regulate the use of employee drug testing.  The first step in implementing an employee drug testing policy is to evaluate and determine what your company’s exact employee drugs testing needs are.  To do this, determine what your business’ drug abuse risk is.  For example, if you have noticed a decrease in productivity or an increase in employee-caused accidents, you will want to focus your employee drug testing protocol on solving these problems.  In these situations, using random employee drug testing may be your best option. 

The second step in implementing an employee drug testing policy to understand the applicable law relating to employee drug testing.  Depending on the state your company is in and the type of work your company does, various state and federal laws may effect how employee drug testing can be done.  Since the area of employee drug testing and employee privacy rights is a rapidly evolving area of the law, it is highly recommended you seek the professional legal advice of a qualified attorney who can help you understand how to set up a legal employee drug testing program. 

Once you know what your employee drug testing need is and what the relevant employee drug testing laws are, the third step is to decide what type of employee drug testing system you want to implement.  There are many different methods of performing employee drug testing and each have their own individual advantages and disadvantages.  For example, your company can chose between using random employee drug testing or regularly scheduled employee drug testing.  Further, employee drug testing, whether random or scheduled, can be performed using a variety of different procedures.  For example, you can use urine, saliva, sweat or hair samples for employee drug testing.  

Usually employee drug testing is only valid if performed by a medical professional.  Therefore, it is highly advised that your company hire a professional employee drug testing business to perform all of your employee drug testing needs.  Such companies as Background Network can coordinate professional testing labs, medical review professionals and accurate reports to ensure your employee drug testing is done efficiently and effectively.  Using a nationwide network of OSHA, ODAT and NODA compliant drug testing labs, a national network of collection sites, and pre-employment physical examinations, a professional employee drug testing company will get you the employee drug testing information and services you need to ensure you operate a drug free and safe workplace.

In our last installment we discussed how to obtain motor vehicle records. Today I will discuss how to verify someones employment. Just so you know this is not a way to find out where someone is employed that is another can of worms completely. We will discuss how to determine if someone worked at a particular company and if they have a good work record.

First of all you will need a signed release to do these checks. If you are doing a background check on a prospective employees then the FCRA still applies as well as your state and local laws.

If the person you are doing the check on has filled out an application or has sent you a resume’ then you will have to look in the section that lists their previous employment. Most times they will list the address, phone number and their supervisor. You will want to call the company and try to get a hold of the supervisor. This way you can talk to the person that was directly responsible for that persons work.

A typical call may go something like this:

ABC Company: Hello ABC Company may I help you?
You: Yes may I speak to John Smith in the widget department?
ABC: One moment please.
ABC: Hi this is John Smith how may I help you?
You: Yes John, my name is Harry Mann, I have a gentleman by the name of (whatever the subjects name is) and he is applying for a job with us. He listed you as a contact for his previous employment. Is it ok if I ask you a couple of questions?
ABC: Sure go ahead!
You: (Subjects name) says that he was a widget wrangler with your company is that true?
ABC: Why yes it is!
You: He also states that you were his supervisor?
ABC: Yes, yes I was!
You: Was he a good worker for you then?
ABC: Yep, he was pretty good.
You: Pretty good? Were there any problems?
ABC: No not really.
You: Was he ever late?
ABC: Yes sometimes he was.
You: Well, I know how that goes. I had a guy that was always late and he smelled too.
ABC: Oh yeah, well let me tell you about (subject).

Now all calls may not go like that, but my point is once you start talking to these people be a little personable. It will get you far more information.
Some companies are huge and you will never get through to the supervisor or they may have a policy that they do not give out any information. Almost always though you can at least get dates of employment, salary and if they eligible for re-hire.

If you are willing to spend a little money you can use a service called The Work Number. They have an automated system that can verify someones previous employment. It’s a pretty nifty little tool. If you have any questions that I left unanswered feel free to leave them in the comments section. I will try and answer as many as I can.

In our next article I will cover the basics of verifying someones education. Hope to see you then!

Ok, many people on the Internet search for "free background checks". Most places that offer free background checks make you pay at some point. I am going to explain how you can do a check for free (for the most part) on yourself or someone else.

Let’s clear the air here, if you are going to be running a background check then please follow all state and federal laws pertaining to them. For example if you are conducting the check for employment purposes then please follow the guidelines of the FCRA. Do not take this lightly as you can get into a whole heap of trouble.

Let’s start with the criminal record check. The best way to do this, as I have said before, is to go through the county courts where the person has lived. If you have the persons last address then check that county and the surrounding counties in that area I will give an example. Let’s say I want to conduct a criminal record check on my daughters new boyfriend and I know that he is from Cleveland, Ohio. I went to http://www.ask.com/ and typed in Ohio County Maps. I happen to know that Cleveland, Ohio is located in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Ask.com gave me a good county map of Ohio and from there I can determine the closest counties around Cuyahoga. Check out a copy of the map here http://www.dot.state.oh.us/map1/cntymap.asp .

The reason I want the closest counties to Cuyahoga is because I am going to be checking them for criminal records on our subject as well. Why, you ask? Well because most people that commit crimes tend to do so within their comfort zone, meaning within a certain distance of their house.

So from our example we can see that Lake, Geauga, Summit, Medina and Lorain Counties all surround our target county.

Next we need to figure out what court house we are either going to call or check online. Most courthouses are online these days and you can find a good list of them here http://www.crimcheck.com/freerecords.htm .

Ok, I now have My subjects name, the county he lives in and the surrounding counties of the county he lives in and a list to find the court houses in those counties. Now we need to find out if he has a criminal record. In this instance I used the name Michael Smith. Click the image at the top of this post for the example. As you can see the results all have addresses by them, that is one way to determine that you have the right subject.

Now you can go to all of the other counties on your list and do the same thing. Warning: As you can see from our example there is more than one Michael Smith. Make sure that you have the right subject before you start making accusations or using the results as evidence.

You can even go one step further and check for misdemeanors within the city courts of the counties that your are checking. I would normally just check the city where the subject lives and the county seats of the surrounding counties. If you have comments or questions please feel free to post them here.

I will be covering motor vehicle records and driving records in my next article so stay tuned!

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