Uber Background Check Got You Unfairly Parked? Clear Errors, Get Back onthe Road

Making the decision to steer yourself into the Uber driver career path is exciting and not taken lightly by anyone who understands the risks and rewards involved. This is especially true given that the Uber driver requirements include having to submit to an Uber background check- a fact which can either make you feel relieved or anxious from the start.

If you happen to be someone whose initial response is, “I don’t care about a background check. I’ve never done anything wrong.” You might be in for a big surprise. Uber background check errors are so common that people assuming they’ll get an “all clear” frequently get a “no thanks” instead.

In fact, Uber applicants with and without potentially disqualifying records can find themselves utterly baffled by what shows up in their Uber background check report. This is 0% fair, but 100% true. If you find your Uber driver career stalled out before it can start (or even after you’ve been driving for years!), remember that you have a legal right to accuracy in your background check and background check errors can be fixed.

What Uber Looks for In a Background Check

An Uber background check typically looks at 7 years of your consumer data. What does this mean in practical terms? It means running an Uber criminal background check and an Uber motor vehicle report to determine if you would be a risk to Uber customers or other vehicles on the road.

• The Uber Motor Vehicle Report typically includes your driver history, driver's license status, and an accounting of any violations you may have, including speeding tickets, DUIs, and reckless driving charges.
• The Uber Criminal History Report typically includes a search of county, state, and national databases, including sex offender registries, looking for violent crimes, felonies, sexual offenses, financial crimes, theft, fraud, etc.

Uber Background Check Disqualifiers

You can imagine the types of events on your criminal and driving history that Uber might find unacceptable for anyone hoping to drive under the Uber brand name.

Common disqualifiers include:

• ‍Major Driving Violations like DUIs, reckless driving, or a suspended license‍
• Certain Criminal Convictions like felonies and crimes that are classified as violent or sexual in nature, along with theft-related crimes‍
• Minor Driving Violations that suggest habitual problematic behavior. Chronic traffic violations or similar can show a pattern of not being trustworthy behind the wheel, even if there is no single major incident on your record.‍
• Pending Charges that haven’t lead to a conviction yet, but may.

Who Creates Your Uber Background Check Report?

Surprise! The answer is not Uber.

Uber applicants can’t be blamed for thinking that Uber conducts the Uber background check, but the truth is that a separate company gathers the personal information, runs the check, compiles the data, and submits the report to Uber. The background check company that most often runs these checks for Uber is called Checkr.

This matters because background check companies are a type of consumer reporting agency (CRA) and under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, CRAs are legally required to follow the rule that the information in your background check report must be accurate.

So, when Checkr runs an Uber background check in your name and submits its report to the Uber hiring team, it is supposed to stick to the very basic standard of not providing a background check report filled with false or misleading information.

Seems easy enough, right? You would think. But you’d be wrong. Which is why sometimes it’s necessary to bring an Uber background check lawsuit against Checkr.

(Read more about your rights under the FCRA.)

Common Uber Background Check Errors

So, what happens if you’re flagged for any of these disqualifiers, but they aren’t real? What if you've never even been pulled over for a traffic stop, let alone never gotten a DUI? What if you’ve never even littered, let alone never been convicted of a sex crime? It sounds too outrageous to imagine, but these types of background check errors end Uber driver careers every single day.

Common Uber background check errors include:

• ‍Outdated records: Databases that haven’t been updated may reflect inaccurate information about your criminal and driving history, including court records.‍
• Arrests that didn’t lead to convictions: If the charges were dropped, dismissed, or plead down, that information needs to be accurately portrayed in your background check report.‍
• Identity Mix-ups: This typically happens when someone else’s criminal or driving records show up on your report because you share some common personal details- like a name or birthdate or have a similar social security number.‍
• Duplicate entries: Remember how we said patterns matter? Well, imagine what it looks like if you got one parking ticket IRL, but the same entry got reported six times in your background check. Someone with a periodic oopsy looks like someone with a pattern of serial traffic violations.
• ‍Clerical errors: Sometimes personal details are input into a system wrong, which can cause all kinds of confusion and misinformation.‍
• Expunged or sealed documents reported: If you had a criminal history that was expunged or sealed, record of this event should not be included in your Uber background check report.

Any of these can lead to Uber wrongful disqualifications and unfair Uber deactivations…a.k.a. completely unjust hiring or firing decisions that leave you without a job.

Dispute Uber Background Check Errors & Get Back on the Road

If your Uber driver career was unfairly driven into an Uber background check pothole, here’s how to get out and get back on the road:

1. Review your background check report carefully for mistakes. If you didn’t get a copy from Checkr at the time it was run, you can ask for one and they must provide it.
2. Mark the mistakes and gather documents that support your dispute.
3. File a formal dispute with Checkr, sending your dispute and supporting documents. You'll see that Checkr provides an online dispute platform, but we recommend filing your dispute via certified mail to preserve your legal rights and keep you in control of the records (like the mailing receipt that shows your dispute was received.)
4. Wait 30 days while they investigate your dispute.
5. Confirm the corrections were made.

Be prepared to experience a common, disappointing outcome: being ignored all together or being told the investigation confirmed the accuracy of the disputed data. In other words, “Sorry, we’re not fixing our mistakes.”

Let Mistake.com Fix Uber Background Check Errors for You

At Mistake.com, we actually listen and take you seriously, then we make Checkr undo its mistakes.

Here’s how we do all the work for you:

• We dispute the background check errors for you, including drafting a legally solid dispute letter and helping you gather, identify, and organize strong supporting evidence to prove that Checkr made mistakes.
• We hold Checkr accountable for following the rules of the FCRA, including properly investigating your dispute and responding to you within the legal timeframe.
• We escalate the dispute to a full-blown Uber background check lawsuit if needed and try to get you compensation for the harm Checkr’s mistakes caused.

What are you doing while you wait for your background check to be fixed? Probably feeling calm and sleeping well at night knowing you’re in good hands.

At Mistake.com, we make Checkr fix Uber background check mistakes, so you don’t have to.

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