Free Background Check: How To Check Arrest Records Or Other Background Information

By
Justin Aaron
-
free background check
free background check

 

Are you planning to hire someone as your employee, or whether you are about to rent an apartment, or planning to hire a maid, you must perform a criminal background check to be clear enough to hire a right person. There are many possible ways to perform a free background check, yet the government restricts it to certain limits. Let us have a look at how to perform a criminal background check for free.

Inform the applicant about the background check:

The Fair Credit Reporting Act dictates that you need to tell your applicants that you will perform a background check and might use the information reported to conclude to a decision. You need to get it written on the document that the process is intended and may or may not prevail until the candidate is leaving the company.

Check State Law:

If you are about to perform a check on an employee’s criminal history as one of the hirings criteria, make sure that you check the laws that are posed towards it. As laws in your state may permit you only to certain limits of what information to ask and what not to.

  • The FCRA reports are allowed to gather information as far back as 7 years.
  • Though arrest records are public certain states do not allow even criminal records to be used in hiring decision.
  • Other states prohibit or may limit the information of applicant’s history.

Find Authorized CRAs:

The Fair Credit Report Act fixes who can access a person’s consumer report and collection of information. Only the ones with the valid reason are permitted to access such information.

  • In order to find CRAs, you can visit National Association of Professional Background Screeners website.
  • On visiting the website you could access through search firms by company name, state and zip code.
  • From the search results, one could click on the company’s website and find the information.

The following are some of the leading background check companies for your reference:

Analyze CRAs:

You need to investigate the list of CRAs in your state. A member of the NAPBS should be legal. If in case if you are trying on a non-accredited company, you could call them and come up with the following questions,

  • Do they have a business license and be able to provide them with the reference?
  • Do they follow FCRA regulations?
  • Is the company insured?

Hire CRA:

Once you have found the agency to perform a background check you need to proceed further. You need to certify that you followed the FCRA procedures. You should also certify that you will not violate any laws based on information contained in the person’s report.

Demand a Report:

A consumer report posses information about the criminal records along with the employment and credit history. CRAs, for the most part, won’t uncover common claims, common judgments, captures, accounts out for accumulation, or paid assessment liens in the event that they occurred more than 7 years back.

Finalize the Hiring Decision:

If the information in the report disinclines you from hiring the person, the FCRA regulations demand you to inform the person of the fact. On informing the candidate, he/she might challenge you with the information. You need to do the following,

  • Inform the person about the negative report.
  • Inform the person about the agency from which you retrieved the report.
  • Give them the copy of the summary of your rights under FCRA.
  • Allow the applicant to refute the information retrieved.

These are the steps that you need to have in mind while performing a criminal background check. Make sure that you follow all of these steps and rely on all the regulations and disciplines that FCRA and the state government poses. This helps you to carry out a safe background check process.

READ MORE:

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR