What to do about false hits on criminal background check?
Asked by
robmandu (
21331
)
May 19th, 2011
My neighbor’s kid goes to school with my kid. In order to volunteer for things like Field Day, parents like us must undergo a background check that’s run by the HR department of the school district. My buddy and I submitted the forms for that at the same time.
My neighbor then got a call from the school that there was a “hit” on his background check but that it lacked any information, so they were calling him to see if he could explain. The “event” took place back in his home state a thousand miles away on a particular day that, as it turns out, he was actually with me here (we’d taken our kids to see Tron 2).
So, of course, he couldn’t explain to the school’s HR rep what it was about. His next step was to call the criminal division of the courts of his home state and ask them if they could provide more information. Their search turned up nothing, nada, zip.
The school’s HR rep will next followup with whatever service they use to perform background checks. No update on that part yet.
What would you do next to get this totally cleared up?
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7 Answers
Wait for the HR rep to investigate further. False hits are not that uncommon and it won’t damage your buddy at all if the school has a reliable service doing the background checks.
How do they do these ‘background checks’? I just signed up to help out a charity with kids and they want a social security number, but it’s pointless, I’ve not lived in the US for over 20 years. I’m giving a boatload personal references and if that doesn’t work, they’ll have to do without me.
@cazzie, most states provide background check services for a fee (and you can often get one on yourself for free). Of course, there’s an entire investigative industry that acts as middle man/single point of contact for businesses and charges a markup.
If you don’t have a criminal record, then there’s nothing returned… exactly as if you were out of the country (or just that state) the whole time. The investigative services would presumably use a wider range of sources, like credit info and general 411 sources, too.
@WestRiverrat, any idea why they’re “not that uncommon”?
I thought it weird they had a specific date and identity for my pal, but no relevant actionable info.
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He could call the Police Department – not the clerk of the courts – in his home town and ask for a copy of his criminal record to be faxed or emailed to the school. This should be instantly available for a low fee (here, it’s $5) and it will show any activity with law enforcement for the past 7–10 years.
I’ve had to get mine pulled twice for various reasons (school and volunteer work) in different states. A clean criminal record should suffice for the school’s purposes.
@robmandu mostly it is someone writes a SSN number or address wrong or there is someone else with the same name. If you do a background check on just ‘Jim Jones’ you will come up with a lot of information on a lot of Jim Joneses.
The people doing the background checks are just that, people who sometimes mess up.
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