Background Checks Articles

There are a lot of reasons why background checks are important. Whether you’re looking into a potential employee, checking on a future roommate or tenant, making sure you’re not being catfished, or even discovering that your partner may be living a double life – these services can’t be underestimated. Naturally, there are a lot of companies stepping up to the plate by providing services that help their users run thorough background checks. But how do you choose just one? We took to Reddit to find out which services its users recommend most and to see what experiences Redditors have had with background check services. Read More…

A criminal background report is like a sausage; everyone knows what one is, but no one actually knows what’s in it. Jokes aside, many users have false preconceptions about arrest records and criminal records. These kinds of documents are available to the public and can be delivered to your computer through dedicated search services such as TruthFinder and BeenVerified thanks to the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Most of the information comes from multiple county, state and federal court records, but search engines also look up sex offender registries and the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles records. Read More…

If there is something that sitcoms such as Friends and HIMYM has taught us, it’s that having a roommate is the best way to form a lifelong friendship. They do more than just chip in with the rent, but also keep you company and provide assistance during an emergency. But in reality, it’s not a small risk to share a house or apartment with a stranger: they could be an unpredictable party animal whose lifestyle clashes with your own, a financially ruined chancer trying to freeload off you, or even a drug dealer in disguise.

Whether this is your first time searching for a roommate or you are a worrying parent of a fresh college student, it is better to learn the art of background checking just to stay on the safe side. Read More…

In the past, doing an investigation meant a lot of legwork just to gather a slither of information about someone. Imagine the setting of a black and white detective film where the protagonist borrowed a thick document from the local police chief and spent hours turning pages, sipping whiskey from the bottle, and chewing a cigar. Nowadays these same results can be had by tapping on your phone, as public record search engines deliver full background reports right to your device. This way it’s possible to screen roommates or look up the arrest history of a dodgy neighbor without having to sit down at the computer, not to mention the app versions come with nifty exclusive features. But are these tools convenient enough to replace traditional browser-based background checking? Read More…

Let us tell you a little secret: when investigating the background of your roommate, online or new neighbor, a deep dive into the person’s social media activity is more telling than a huge pile of official documents. If you know how to read between the lines, then going through the subject’s Twitter feed, Facebook profile and Instagram photos makes it very easy to piece together the owner’s personal profile.

For example, if you are interested in the subject’s driving incident, a criminal record search will return information from the relevant court document – which will include case number, date, name of the offense, even the judgement – but it’s also likely that the person has written a long rant on Facebook explaining the situation to their friends, which is an excellent source to get the full context. But what if the target has multiple accounts, some of them even hidden? Read More…

From showing toddlers some of dad’s adult movies to tattooing the letter ‘A’ onto a child’s bottom, all sorts of can go awry when leaving your kids in the care of a complete stranger. Hiring a nanny or babysitter is a risky business because you never know whether it’ll be Mary Poppins or Freddy Krueger that appears on your doorstep.

Parents have come home to see the kid’s supervisor smoking a joint – in one occasion the girl even flashed a young boy in an attempt to bribe him – or find signs of abuse. The bottom line is that the credibility and criminal history of a nanny needs to be checked, whether by asking for their credentials or by conducting a background search. Read More…