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What to Do If Your Background Check Is Wrong

Finding an error on your background check can be scary, especially when it costs you a job you were counting on. A criminal record that isn't yours. An old charge that got dismissed years ago but never disappeared. Employment dates that are just wrong. Any of these can be the difference between getting hired and getting a rejection email with zero explanation.

Unfortunately, background check mistakes are more common than you might think. Millions of job applicants and employees are screened every year, and a good share of those reports contain outdated, incomplete, or simply wrong information.

What most people don't realize is that this isn't just a customer service issue you're expected to sort out on your own. It's a legal one. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a federal law that governs how consumer data can be collected, reported, and used, puts specific legal obligations on both background check companies and the employers who rely on their reports.

Before an employer can turn you down based on a background check, the law requires them to follow a defined process, and background check companies are legally required to take reasonable steps to make sure their reports are accurate.

This guide explains how background check disputes work, what the law requires of employers and screening companies, common mistakes job seekers make, and when an error may become a legal claim.

If that's where you are, Mistake.com's attorneys review these cases every day. We'll tell you honestly whether you have a claim, and if you do, we handle it from start to finish at no cost to you. The company responsible for the error pays our fees, not you.

Quick Answer

To fix a background check error:

1. Request a copy of the background check report from the company that prepared it.
2. Identify every inaccurate, outdated, or mismatched entry.
3. Submit a written dispute to the background check company, and separately to the source of the incorrect information if you can identify it.
4. Monitor the investigation and confirm the results in writing.

The FCRA generally requires background check companies to investigate disputes within 30 days of receiving them. If an employer used a flawed report to deny you a job without giving you the notice the law requires, or if the background check company ignored your dispute, you may have legal rights under the FCRA, potentially including compensation for lost wages, emotional distress, statutory damages, and attorney's fees.

How Common Are Background Check Errors?

Studies from consumer advocacy groups and the Federal Trade Commission have repeatedly found that background reports, especially criminal history reports, carry a meaningfully higher error rate than standard credit reports, largely because criminal records are scattered across thousands of separate county, state, and federal court systems that do not always share updates with each other. A dismissal, expungement, or sealed record in one county's system does not automatically clear that same record from a background check company's older database.

Some applicants find out about an error the moment they're rejected. Others never find out at all, because many employers don't tell candidates why they were passed over, even when a background check played a role.

Common background check errors include:

• Criminal records that belong to someone else with a similar name
• Charges that were dismissed, expunged, or sealed but still appear
• Arrests without a final disposition, shown as if they resulted in a conviction
• Duplicate listings of the same offense
• Convictions reported beyond the time the law allows
• Incorrect employment dates or job titles
• Incorrect education or licensing information
• Identity mismatches caused by a shared name, address, or Social Security number

Even one wrong entry can be enough for an employer to move on to another candidate, often without ever telling you why.

Why Background Check Errors Happen

Many people assume a background check must be accurate because a professional company prepared it. In reality, background check companies pull records from county courthouses, state repositories, and federal databases that were never designed to talk to each other. When a record is entered incorrectly, matched to the wrong person, or simply never updated after a case was resolved, that error can travel into report after report.

Background check errors can appear for a range of reasons:

• Identity mismatches. Your report is matched using a name, birth date, or partial Social Security number that also fits someone else.
• Outdated court records. A dismissal or expungement is granted, but the background check company's database was never updated to reflect it.
• Incomplete case information. An arrest appears with no final disposition, making it look unresolved or worse than it was.
• Data reseller errors. Many background check companies buy bulk data from third-party resellers instead of pulling directly from the courthouse, multiplying the chance of an error.
• Employer-side mistakes. A prior employer verifies the wrong dates, title, or reason for separation.
• Reporting beyond the legal time limit. Older convictions or records are reported past the window the FCRA allows.

Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

Employment background checks are covered by the same federal law that protects your credit report, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). But because a background check can cost you a job instead of just a few points on your credit score, the law adds a few extra layers of protection specifically for this situation.

Under the FCRA, you have the right to:

• Be told, clearly and separately from your other paperwork, that a background check may be run on you
• Give written permission before an employer can pull your report
• See a copy of the report, along with a summary of your rights, before an employer acts on it
• Get a formal notice if you're rejected, even partially, because of something in the report
• Dispute anything you believe is wrong or incomplete, at no cost to you
• Have the background check company actually investigate your dispute, not just rubber-stamp it
• Have inaccurate or unverifiable information corrected or removed
• Have negative information taken off your record once it's legally too old to report
• Seek compensation if any of these rights get violated

At the center of all of this is one simple standard: background check companies are legally required to use reasonable procedures to keep your information as accurate as possible. That single requirement is the foundation almost every dispute and lawsuit comes back to.

What the Law Actually Requires Before a Job Rejection

There's a specific sequence an employer has to follow, and skipping a step is often the real violation, even when the background check turns out to be accurate.

Before running a check, the employer has to give you a clear, standalone heads-up that a report may be pulled, separate from the rest of your application paperwork, and get your signature agreeing to it.

Before rejecting you because of what's in that report, the employer has to hand you a copy of the report itself along with a summary of your rights, and give you a real chance to respond before making a final decision. This step is sometimes called "pre-adverse action," and its entire purpose is to let you catch and fix an error before it costs you the job, not after.

If the employer decides to move forward with the rejection anyway, they're required to send you a formal notice explaining that decision.

For public record information specifically, like criminal or civil court records, the background check company has its own separate obligation: either tell you at the same time they report that record to the employer, or keep tight enough procedures in place to guarantee that information stays current and complete.

Here's the part most people miss: the most common violation isn't a wrong record showing up. It's a skipped step. An employer who sees a flagged report and rejects a candidate that same day, without ever sending the report or the pre-adverse action notice, has broken the law regardless of whether the report was accurate. That's a separate legal claim from any error in the data itself, and it's often the easier one to prove

Step-by-Step: How to Dispute a Background Check Error

1. Request a copy of your background check. If an employer ran a background check on you, you are entitled to a copy of it, especially if it was used, even partly, to deny you a job. If you were never shown the report, that alone may be a violation worth discussing with an attorney.
2. Identify the exact error and gather documentation. Be specific about which entry is wrong: which case number, which employer, which date, and what it should say instead. Gather supporting evidence such as a certified court disposition, an expungement order, or documentation from a prior employer confirming the correct dates.
3. Submit a written dispute to the background check company. Disputes can typically be filed online, by mail, or by phone, but a written dispute sent by certified mail creates a record you can point to later. State clearly what is inaccurate and why, and attach copies, never originals, of your supporting documents. The dispute address and process differ by company, since background check firms like HireRight, Sterling, Checkr, and First Advantage are not the same as Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion, but all are bound by the same FCRA dispute obligations.
4. Dispute with the original source when you can identify it. If a court, county clerk, or former employer is the source of the wrong information, notifying them directly can help resolve the error at its root, not just in one company's database.
5. Track the company's response. The background check company generally has 30 days from receipt to investigate. If it determines your dispute is frivolous or irrelevant, typically because it lacks enough detail to investigate, it must notify you of that determination and its reasoning within five business days.
6. Confirm the correction. Once the investigation closes, the company must give you written results and, if a change was made, an updated copy of the report. Request that update and confirm the error is actually gone, not just marked as "under review."
7. Consult an attorney if the error was not resolved. If a background check mistake played a role in losing a job offer, an apartment, or another opportunity, or if you disputed the error and it still wasn't corrected, this may be more than an administrative mix-up. It could be a violation of your rights under the FCRA. At Mistake.com, our attorneys review these cases for free and can tell you honestly whether you have a claim. If you do, we handle it from there, and there's no cost to you. The company responsible for the error pays our fees.

How Long Can Negative Information Legally Stay on a Background Check?

Background checks are subject to the same statutory time limits as credit reports, with one detail that matters even more here. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c, most adverse items must be removed after seven years. But there's a key exception specific to employment: information reported in connection with a job application paying more than $75,000 annually is not subject to that seven-year limit at all.

That means for many higher-paying positions, older records can lawfully still appear, which makes it especially important to know whether a record is being reported accurately, not just whether it's old. A conviction that is legally reportable can still violate the FCRA if it's reported with the wrong disposition, the wrong date, or attributed to the wrong person.

Common Mistakes People Make When Disputing

• Disputing by phone only, with no written record of what was said
• Being vague ("this isn't right") instead of identifying the specific case number, date, or entry
• Assuming the background check company can see your expungement automatically. Courts don't always notify third-party data providers.
• Not requesting the report itself before disputing, so you're guessing at what's actually wrong
• Accepting a "verified" result without confirming anyone actually reviewed your documentation
• Not following up after the 30-day window closes
• Assuming there's nothing to be done once a job offer is already gone. In many cases, that's exactly when a legal claim becomes clearest.

Popular Background Check Companies

Not every background check comes from the same place, and the company behind your report matters, since dispute processes and track records differ. Here are the major players you're most likely to encounter, along with some of the employers and platforms known to use them:

• First Advantage/Sterling: One of the largest global screening providers, acquired Sterling in 2024.  

• Checkr: Powers most gig-economy background checks, including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Shipt.  

• HireRight: Screens over 85 million people annually. Merged with General Information Services (GIS) in 2018.  

• Accurate Background: Conducts background checks for over 16,000 clients. Acquired Orange Tree Employment Screening in 2024.  

• Asurint: Provides over 10 million employment and tenant screenings per year.  

• Infomart: Runs employment background checks for more than 22,000 clients in over 200 countries.  

• TransUnion: Offers both employment and tenant background screening in addition to consumer credit reporting.  

• Turn Technologies: AI-native background check platform built primarily for high-volume hourly and shift-based hiring.

• ADP Screening & Selection Services: Provides employment background screenings and integrates with ADP's broader HR and talent-acquisition solutions.  

• SambaSafety (Safety Holdings, Inc.): A driver-risk and motor vehicle record screening provider whose reports are used for employment and rideshare screenings.  

• Cisive: Cisive, formerly CARCO Group, provides background screening for highly regulated industries including financial services, healthcare, and transportation.  

• Yardstik: A technology-based background screening provider focused on high-volume workforces and gig platforms.  

• DISA Global Solutions: Specializes in safety-sensitive and highly regulated industries. Provides criminal background checks, motor vehicle records, and other workforce screening services in over 190 countries.  

• Inflection Risk Solutions: Acquired by Checkr in 2022. Inflection was the parent company of GoodHire, which is now also part of Checkr.  

• GoodHire: Owned by Checkr and focused primarily on background-check solutions for small and midsize businesses.  

• Justifacts: Employer-direct screening provider built around dedicated account managers, with clients in the healthcare, manufacturing, education, and hospitality industries.  

• ClearStar: Offers criminal, employment, education, motor vehicle, credit, and international background checks.  

If you don't recognize the name on your report, it's worth asking your employer directly which company ran the check. You're entitled to that information, and it determines where your dispute needs to go.

Background Check Lawsuits and Settlements: What the Data Shows

Background check litigation isn't rare, and it isn't small. FCRA-related class action settlements have totaled well over $100 million over the past decade, according to the nonprofit Good Jobs First's litigation tracker.

A few of the larger, more recent cases give a sense of the recurring patterns:

• HireRight, one of the largest employment screening companies in the country, has faced a pattern of litigation going back more than fifteen years, including a multimillion-dollar class action settlement. Recent cases include one where a criminal conviction was attributed to the wrong person entirely, and another where an employment-date mismatch cost a candidate a job offer after it was rescinded.
• First Advantage, which acquired Sterling in a deal that closed in October 2024, previously settled a class action over background reports issued to employers without the applicant's prior authorization.
• TransUnion was the subject of one of the most significant FCRA cases in recent history after a background screening add-on product falsely matched consumers to a government watch list. A jury initially awarded the class roughly $60 million in damages. The case ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which held in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (2021) that only class members whose misleading reports were actually sent to a third party, such as a lender or employer, had suffered the kind of concrete harm needed to sue in federal court. That significantly narrowed which class members could actually recover. The case is now the leading precedent on what it takes to have standing in an FCRA class action, and it's a good example of why simply having an error in your file is different, legally, from having that error reported to someone else.

One more data point worth knowing if you're weighing whether to wait for a class action instead of pursuing your own claim: class certification rates in FCRA cases dropped sharply, from around 75 percent in 2023 to about 38 percent in both 2024 and 2025. Individual claims increasingly need to stand on their own.

Has Your Background Check Error Become a Legal Issue?

Not every background check mistake results in a lawsuit, and many are resolved through the standard dispute process. But there's a point where the issue is no longer just about correcting a database entry. It becomes a question of whether the background check company or the employer followed the law.

You may want to speak with a background check error attorney if:

• You were rejected for a job and never shown the background check report first
• You disputed an error, but it was never corrected.
• The background check company "verified" information that a certified court document contradicts.
• A record that belongs to someone else keeps appearing on your report.
• An expunged or sealed record still shows up.
• You lost a job offer, promotion, or your current position because of inaccurate information.
• You experienced financial losses, such as lost wages, or significant stress because of a reporting error

Having one or more of these facts does not automatically mean you have a lawsuit. Every case depends on its specific circumstances, including what the report said, whether you were given the notice the law requires, and how any dispute was handled. Our attorneys can evaluate those circumstances and tell you whether additional legal remedies may be available.

Our attorneys can help by reviewing the report and your dispute history, figuring out whether the background check company or the employer violated the FCRA, pursuing correction of anything inaccurate or outdated, and seeking compensation when an error cost you a job offer or caused real distress. Since FCRA claims are typically handled on contingency, there are no upfront attorney fees

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Background Check Resources

We believe in giving you more than just our side of the story. Here are some government-backed resources that can help you:

• Federal Trade Commission: Background Checks, What Job Applicants and Employees Should Know
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Background Check Guidance
• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Background Checks and Fair Hiring
• Fair Credit Reporting Act, Full Statutory Text (Cornell Law)
• File a Complaint with the CFPB