If you are an employer needing background checks performed on prospective employees, MSI Detective Services offers this service. Mistakes won’t be make like the ones you will read about in this story because we have the means to accurately check and cross-check information. For example, in the first story, our staff would have noticed that the birth date did not match the age of the individual, and even if it did, one of our Private Investigators would have pulled the police report to ensure they had the right person. Employers should also know that they are required by law to inform job applicants when they have been rejected because of negative information in a background check. This gives the applicant an opportunity to clear up any mis-information. So, unless you want a lawsuit on your hands, you are advised to do a proper background check and follow the law.
Out of work two years, her unemployment benefits exhausted, in danger of losing her apartment, Casey applied for a job in the pharmacy of a Boston drugstore. She was offered $11 an hour. All she had to do was pass a background check.
It turned up a 14-count criminal indictment. Kathleen Casey had been charged with larceny in a scam against an elderly man and woman that involved forged checks and fake credit cards.
There was one technicality: The company that ran the background check, First Advantage, had the wrong woman. The rap sheet belonged to Kathleen A. Casey, who lived in another town nearby and was 18 years younger.
Kathleen Ann Casey, would-be pharmacy technician, was clean.
“It knocked my legs out from under me,” she says.
The business of background checks is booming. Employers spend at least $2 billion a year to look into the pasts of their prospective employees. They want to make sure they’re not hiring a thief, or worse.
But it is a system weakened by the conversion to digital files and compromised by the welter of private companies that profit by amassing public records and selling them to employers. These flaws have devastating consequences. Read the full article »
