FAQ
How to Order a Background Check
OK, so you want to order a background check on someone, but you’ve never done it before and you don’t know what is involved. Below is a step-by-step guide and after you’ve read this you will be ready to place an order.
The first determination is what do you need? Most people want a criminal history check on someone, somewhere. If you don’t know where else this person may have lived. Don’t worry; chances are we can find that out for you.
If you want to verify a person’s current or previous jobs, education or professional license we will need specific info. Remember our job is verification. You have to tell us what to verify. A lot of otherwise intelligent people think that there are giant government databases with all of that info kept about you. That is an urban legend. It doesn’t exist. There are giant databases with current and previous addresses and we use those.
Unlike criminal or civil records check for records from the courthouse, for credit reports you will have to have a signed consent form and a permissible purpose. If you are thinking of getting a credit report on a potential spouse or acquaintance or business associate without their knowledge or permission be prepared to pay a $5000 fine and the person you are checking will be notified that you checked on them.
Secondly, do you want a real background (records) check or do you just want a quickie database check that will be cheaper, but probably inaccurate. Those Instant Nationwide or Free Unlimited Background Checks that you see on the internet are junk. Don’t believe me? Check your own name.
Lastly, do you have sufficient information on the person, such as their Full Name, Date of Birth and Social Security Number? If you are ordering a background check on a person for employment purposes or property rental, etc. you should have a signed consent form with that information. Otherwise, you can’t legally use the (negative) information you have found to rescind the offer of employment or property.
If you do not have the person’s knowledge and permission, that’s OK. Remember, it’s what you do with the information where the law is concerned. Assuming that you don’t want to do something illegal, and you just want to check on someone for personal reasons and you don’t have exact info, it may be OK. You may have a name and you know the city where the person lives or maybe even the street, but not the number. That may be enough, especially if the person you are checking does not have a common name.
When searching criminal records the person’s full name is always the first criteria followed by the date of birth, to eliminate duplicate info. SS# is only used by reputable companies like ours to get the full name, address and often the date of birth. We also use it to determine where to search. This is very important. A criminal will never tell you to look where he/she has a criminal record. Therefore the first thing we do when we start any background check is to get a list of all of the person’s previous addresses, thereby telling us where to look for records.
Marriage/Divorce records. We get many requests to check out someone’s marital status. I am going to tell you something here that no one else in this business will probably tell you. Such searches are probably a waste of your money. Why? Because in virtually every state there is no statewide marriage info. All of that info is kept county by county and anybody can get married anywhere and divorced somewhere else. I’ve had people ask me, “How much would it cost to check every county in Southern California?” To which I reply, “What about Las Vegas?” And they’ll say, “Yeah, that too.” And I say, “What about Tijuana or Hawaii?” As you can see, we can check anywhere, but it is not practical to check everywhere. As I am writing this I just decided to offer an ‘Is He Married Package’. It checks every county, parish, borough, and census area in the USA for a flat fee of only $39,995.00
Just think, if you could only get a glimpse of someone’s tax return to see if they are married filing jointly or separately, that would answer many of the questions.
International Searches. Throw out everything you think you know about checking people out. Start with zero and you won’t be disappointed. Maybe you can get a criminal history report with some degree of accuracy and you can verify employment and education but that’s about it.
Thirdly, send this info to us by e-mail. We will look over the info, make sure there are no additional questions then send you a PayPal link in an e-mail for you to post payment before we begin.
Costs: a Criminal History Report anywhere in the US (in up to three jurisdictions) except New York is only $49. New York is $75. International Criminal History checks are $99 in most countries and $140 in Great Britain and $200 in Russia.
Turnaround time: is anywhere from a couple hours to 2-3 days. (More for international criminal checks). Remember that we are doing real criminal searches often by hand. Yes, in at least half of the USA’s 3100 counties records must be searched in person at the court clerk’s office. That’s why those instant nationwide searches that you see advertized are junk. They only collect data where it is online and free, which is less than half of the country.
The results can be by phone, e-mail or written report. If anything comes up that you should know about, we will let you know right away. For example; if you are checking someone in England and California and we find something in California while waiting for the English report, we will let you know.
