Employee background check errors harm thousands of workers By Patrick Thibodeau, Senior News Writer/Makenzie Holland, News Writer

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Employee Background Check errors harm thousands of workers: 
See the full article here:  https://www.techtarget.com/searchhrsoftware/feature/Employee-background-check-errors-harm-thousands-of-workers
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A criminal background check only needs minutes to ruin a life. That's how long it takes for prospective employers, in some instances, to get a background check report on a job candidate. But mistakes that incorrectly identify an applicant as a thief or sex offender happen more often than many expect. The effect can be emotionally and financially devastating, and HR managers make it worse by often dropping their job candidate before a correction is issued.

​Common mistakes include mismatched names and addresses. One background check lawsuit alleged that the first name of Ashley was misidentified as Alysha. In another case, two people with the same first and last name were mixed up despite their distinct middle names: Magdalena and Elena. In another lawsuit, an applicant with a middle name of Scot (one T) was confused with someone whose middle name was Scott (two T's). A background check firm told one job applicant that his Social Security number was in the government's "Death Master File." 

But the lawsuit against a First Advantage Corp. subsidiary alleged that it incorrectly mixed Donald up with someone with a criminal record. Donald has no criminal convictions; the "corrected report came weeks after plaintiff had already lost his Lowe's job offer," the suit stated. The case is in settlement discussions, according to court records. 

More than 90% of employers use background check data as part of the hiring process, according to the CFPB. The background check industry is also expanding what it offers, with one growth area known as "continuous" background checks for existing employers, according to IPO filings. Background checks are also expanding in scope to include social media.

Another man who filed a lawsuit, Eric, obtained a job as a driver with a trucking firm that operates as an Amazon subcontractor. He was offered a job as delivery associate "pending a successful background check." The background check reported no criminal record, according to his lawsuit filed in a U.S. District Court in California. But the background check firm reported that he was a registered sex offender, the lawsuit alleged.

Eric was "shocked and angry"; he was "now unemployed and with a family to support" and could not "believe that he had to explain to his wife and family that he could not start work because his background report showed that he was a sex offender," the lawsuit stated

Michael, an Arizona man, was accepted for a job at health insurer Humana in June, before the background check, which was taking a long time to complete, was provided to the insurance company.
When the report was issued, Michael's background check included a "patently inaccurate" criminal conviction for theft of services, the lawsuit said. The background check firm misidentified him as someone else, leading Humana to put him on a "no work status," according to the lawsuit

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