What is an Employment Background Check?

What is an Employment Background Check?

Maybe you’ve thought, I don’t want to be an FBI agent, state trooper, or cyber security expert, I don’t have to worry about needing an employment background check. But you’d be surprised to know that workers across a wide selection of industries, from Uber drivers and Walmart employees to nurses and teachers (and more!) all get background pre-employment screening.

The background screening process usually works like this:

• You get a conditional job offer, meaning the employer says something like, “You seem like a great fit. We’ll just need to make sure everything checks out before we can set a start date.”
• You sign an authorization for the employer to run a background check and provide certain key personal information if you haven’t already- like your name, birthdate, social security number, etc.
• Usually within a few days, you get notified that everything cleared and you’re ready to get to work.

But what if something goes wrong?

Signs You May Have Failed a Background Check

Not everyone moves through the process without hitting roadblocks, and not everybody even realizes why. The two biggest signs you a failed background check are

• ‍Receiving an adverse action notice. Under federal law, the employer is required to send out this notice in advance of officially terminating your chances of employment. Among other things, the notice must state that you are expected to be rejected for the job because of derogatory remarks on your background check. Which, of course, means that negative info showed up.
• Job offer withdrawn. If your employer fails to send you the required adverse action notice, you may learn the job offer has been withdrawn, without any explanation why. Or they may vaguely state that the job isn’t available anymore. But failing to send the notice is itself potentially a violation of your legal rights.

Common Reasons Background Checks Lead to Job Denial

A job denial due to a background check is either expected (you know what’s in your own past and weren’t sure if you’d make it through the screening process successfully) or it’s unexpected (you know what’s in your own past and there is nothing that should have raised a red flag).

Whether it was expected or unexpected, the two most common reasons that background checks lead to job denials are:

1. Criminal record disqualifications- this applies to all jobs across the board, usually. Certain criminal history events, like violent felonies or embezzlement, can be an immediate disqualifier, but every employer has their own rules.
2. Driving record disqualifications- this applies to jobs where your driving record will play a big part in your job duties, if hired. For instance, rideshare drivers, delivery drivers, and commercial drivers.

Regardless of the reason, there’s only one thing that really matters- is the information true? Or is it false? If the information is true, there may still be ways to rescue your job offer, but it may also be a final decision.

If the information is misleading, inaccurate, or false, then your job denial is based on bad data in a background check report and it’s entirely unfair.

Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

An inaccurate background check report is a violation of your Fair Credit Reporting Act employment rights. The FCRA is a key federal law that protects groups like job candidates, consumers seeking credit, people in need of insurance, and renters applying for housing from being hurt by errors in their consumer reports, including employment screening reports.

Because of the importance of this law, some people refer to all employment screening reports as FCRA background checks, which is indisputably a very fitting name. The FCRA is part background check consent law and part background check accountability law.

In other words, the FCRA requires that any employer running your background check get authorization first- before looking into your background. Without your consent, no one should be snooping into your personal data. And it requires that any report claiming to tell the story of your personal data needs to tell a true story, not a fictional one.

Background Check Errors: How They Happen

Background check errors, including a mixed file background check, show up because massive companies buy and sell your data, relying on automated systems (and increasingly on AI) to identify, gather, and sort the data that is supposed to be yours.

When these systems put speed over accuracy and remove most of the human review (also known as common sense) portion, an inaccurate background report is a common outcome.

What to Do If Your Background Check Is Wrong

To fix an inaccurate background report you’ll need to dispute background check errors by following the specific dispute process set out by the background check company in question.

The background report dispute process can differ slightly with respect to where to send the dispute or what to include, but for the mostpart, it will look like this:

1. Request a copy of the report
2. Review it for errors, marking them up as you go
3. Prepare a detailed and specific letter stating which info is wrong and why
4. Identify and gather supporting proof and make copies
5. Send a copy of the marked-up report, your dispute letter, and copies of your supporting docs to the background check company at the dispute address provided on their website. We suggest using certified mail rather than an online dispute portal. Save the mail receipts.
6. Carefully track the time, making note of when 30 days have passed.
7. Escalate your dispute into a full-blown lawsuit if you need to.

Can You Sue for Background Check Errors?

Every case is unique and needs to be evaluated based on the facts and the law, but for the most part, a background check lawsuit is possible if you’ve experienced any of these things:

• You never hear back from the background check company after filing a dispute. 30 days came and went and it’s nothing but crickets.
• You get a response that basically says, “We looked into it and don’t see any errors.” This is a way that many screening companies like to play the role of a concerned corporation without actually doing a legitimate investigation. Usually, it’s a sign that they went back to the original source of the data and just asked, “Is this data true?” But unfortunately, data being true doesn’t mean it isn’t an error. For instance, what if the data is TRUE- someone with that name committed a felony- but it isn’t YOUR data? Or what if the data is TRUE, but it shows up five times on your report, making you look like repeat offender?
• You get a response saying the errors will be fixed, but they never are.
• You suffer a lost job offer, disqualification, deactivation, or termination based on the errors.

In any of these situations, it may be possible to sue the background check company for its mistakes.

Can you sue an employer for a background check riddled with mistakes? Usually the company responsible for the errors- the background check company- gets sued. But there are FCRA violations by employers that can open them to a lawsuit as well (like a failure to send an adverse action notice, failure to get authorization for the background check, or providing the erroneous report to someone else).

How Mistake.com Helps Fight Employment Background Check Errors

When you’re denied employment for bogus background reasons and you need legal help, there are two things that really make the recovery process easier: the first is helpful, knowledgeable guidance throughout the background check dispute process, and the second is legal backup from an experienced consumer protection attorney. At Mistake.com, you get both in one easy move.

Here’s how it works:

• You reach out with a phone call or contact form
• One of our team members get in touch with you right away to get more info
• We know what to ask you and what you’ll need to gather to build a case
• One of our FCRA lawyers reviews everything and starts strategizing
• We draft the dispute letter for you, complete with supporting info
• If you get ignored, or if you already got harmed, a background check lawyer is already on the case, ready to pursue legal action and potentially even get you compensation.

When you work with Mistake.com, we do the work for you- fast and for free!

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