We designed this service especially for the business owner who wants to verify the information in an employment application, and for the attorney who wants to look into the background of potential witnesses or jurors.
More than a Falls Church criminal records check or an Arlington County Skip Tracing operation, a Background Check retrieves Nationwide information from multiple sources. Hence, it provides not only protection for the business operation, but also litigation support for the attorney.
How It Is Done
Sometimes (erroneously) called a background investigation or BI, this process is really a series of verifications. It is not a BI; a BI is conducted by investigators working the street. A background check is done by researchers on a computer (and yes, for a few types of searches, by investigators). In some ways, it is similar to a combination Skip Trace and Asset Search. A background check may also be called a pre-employment screen, or pre-employment background check.
Legal Issues
Later, I will show you how a good background check is done. (There are 14 Points to a quality background check.) A word of caution: as an employer, you may have legal exposure if you fail to routinely conduct pre-employment checks. In fact, you may have legal exposure if you routinely do conduct background (i.e., pre-employment) checks.
Discuss this with your lawyer. An hour with your attorney in her office is less expensive than an hour in court. For more information on this topic, written by a lawyer, go to Employment Background Checks in an Insecure World in the Virginia Bar Association News Journal.
Scary Statistics
So why would you, the business owner, need one? Well, consider that over 40% of all resumes are fraudulent. And here are some statistics concerning employment applications that will get your attention:
Over 5% of the personal references are non-existent
Over 15% of the education references are bogus
Over 60% of previous salary levels are inflated
75% of the people who perpetrate white collar crimes in a given company did so at a prior company
Is it any wonder that....
Many applications contain employment histories that cannot be verified?
More than 18% of home addresses provided on employment applications are non-existent?
Workplace theft increases at the rate of nearly 20% each year, adding significantly to retail prices. In fact, employee theft (called internal shrinkage by retail loss prevention) costs American business around $70,000,000,000 (70 billion) a year!
Got Secrets?
Another reason to have applicants vetted -- one that most folks do not talk about is Industrial Espionage. If your company has secrets (formulas, results of market research, sales goals, and so on), you certainly want to protect them (see Counterespionage for American Business.)
We can adjudicate the application with the results of the background check (yes, just like the US Intelligence Community) and then discuss the findings with you.
Premises Liability Premises liability is the civil liability of property owners or occupiers that ensues from the foreseeable criminal acts of third persons. Courts have held this to extend to principal tenants and occupiers of a given property. In other words, business owners. Most of those third persons are employees.
Businesses that have most often been successfully sued (and in most cases settled out of court) for premises security liability are:
• Multi-unit residential property • Hotels and motels • Retail establishments • Restaurants and bars • Office Building management Apartment units, parking lots, and parking garages have, over the years, accounted for over 40% of specific locations where crimes are committed. Those crimes include assault and battery, wrongful death, rape, and robbery. Over 20% of the lawsuits for premises liability have historically resulted in awards over $1,000,000. Foreseeability
In hearing civil cases concerning employee assault or rape against another employee or customer, courts have used the doctrine of foreseeability to determine an employer's liability or degree ofresponsibility for the harmful acts of an employee. If the employer (Business Owner) could have known or should have known about the employee's history of violence, and failed to respond to that knowledge, the employer could be seen as negligent. Let's say the employer failed to require an applicant to answer every question on the application, or hired the person without an application (and this happens more than you know). The employee commits violence against another person. Turns out, had the employer required a complete application and then had a criminal record search conducted, she would have learned that the perpetrator was a parole violator for rape. Checking criminal records is a big reason for doing pre-employment screening. Don't Forget the Paralegals
Law firms use the tools of background checking to qualify witnesses and examine issues that may be hidden among jurors and prejudicial to a client's case. (Nothing like getting surprises in court!) Other reasons include: verify employment, residence, education, eligibility for employment in the United States. (And yes, hiring people who are in the country without documentation is illegal.) There are other websites that can offer you valuable information on this topic, one of which is sponsored by Lexis-Nexis, the firm used by law firms for much of their research: www.background-checks-systems.com. (But you are going to hire us, right?) Solution To Your Problem
I promised to tell you how a good background check is done. In simple terms, here is what we offer you in our Background Check (or Pre-Employment Screening):
ID Verification through E-Verify: PITORRI AND ASSOCIATES, LLC is a Designated Agent for the E-Verify Program, sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Social Security Administration. FREE with the Background Check.
SSN Verification (Is it assigned to the person named in the application? Or is the person to whom it is assigned really deceased? Is it bogus?) Also FREE.
OFAC(Office of Foreign Assets and Control) Patriot Act Search. In response to the Patriot Act, the law requires that all businesses screen applicants against OFAC. We do this for you. FREE with the Background Check.
US Sex Offender Search (Some states and counties do not contribute to the national data base, so we search at the state or county level.)
Credit Bureau Header Search (Not a Consumer Credit Report) A valuable tool, this provides (verifies) all names that the person has used, date of birth, addresses, usually telephone numbers, social security number, and more.
Drivers License Verification (In most states.)
DMV-MVR Driving Record * (In most states -- not in the District of Columbia.**)
National Criminal Record Search
RAPSHEET Criminal Record Report Picks up what NCRS may have failed to uncover in court records, departments of corrections, law enforcement records, sex offender databases. Goes to felonies and misdemeanors, including disposition.
Manual County Court Search (There are over 3,000 counties in the United States. Believe it or not, not all of them send their records to any national database. This search is actually done by an investigator working for the information provider, and returns felonies, misdemeanors, and traffic violations.)
Bankruptcies, Liens, Judgments
Evictions
Manual Employment Verification (By an investigator working for the provider.)
* There is a Federal Rule of Law regarding Prohibition on release and use of certain personal information from State motor vehicle records: 18 U.S.C. 2721 et seq. We check Title 18 for Permissible Purpose when we receive a DMV-MVR request.
** The District of Columbia Government requires the VIN to release MVR information by owner name. DC inquiries can take over three months.
More Information?
For information on how the U.S. Government conducts background checks -- called Single Scope Background Investigations -- visit our blog articles We Know What You Did Last Summer and Govt BI's II.
For more details about background screening, our portfolio of services, and for a free copy of the booklet Liability in Negligent Hiring: How to Avoid Hiring Risk,contact us now.
