by Kit Fremin
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With a myriad of online dating services available, many people want to conduct
background checks on their online acquaintances or lovers. When they conduct the
check the three main things they wish to know about a potential fiancé are:
1. Their financial status including credit, job and assets.
2. Their marital status including family, alimony and child support.
3. Their criminal history or lack thereof.
Here are some things that you must know before you order a background check or
conduct that check yourself. (Note: The remainder of this article we will use the
abbreviation of “OL” when referring to an online acquaintance or lover.
Fact #1. Ordering a credit report on someone, even with their written permission, is not
a permissible purpose. Therefore, the credit bureaus will not issue the report to you. If
you should be able to find someone who will run a credit report for you illegally, you and
that person can each receive a substantial fine per incident. (A more immediate result
would be the revocation of credit report services by the credit reporting bureau.) The
simple way around this is to have the person obtain his own credit report and give you a
copy or let you see the original.
Fact #2. Verifying a job is easy. First you need to get the “facts” from your OL.
Remember that you are verifying the information not getting new information from the
employer. They will verify the info you have, but will not give out new info. Those facts
should include the OL’s job title and dates of employment as a minimum. Most larger
employers do not give out salary information, but they may give you the range of the
pay grade. When doing this we always ask an open-ended question at the end, after
we’ve received all of the basic information. The question would be something like this,
“What can you tell us about his/her competency, character or job performance?” With a
question like that you might get a response like the following: “There are no disciplinary
actions in his/her file, but doing his/her payroll is a pain because his/her pay is
garnisheed because of alimony and child support payments."
It is an urban myth that you (or an employer) can’t ask certain questions of a previous
employer. Nonsense; you can ask whatever you want. The previous employer doesn’t
have to answer, but there’s no harm asking.
To check his/her assets, you would probably start with their home. Many, if not most
counties have online searchable property tax assessment records. All you need is the
address and you can get some idea of the value of the property. It may be mortgaged to
the hilt, but that info is much more difficult to obtain. If the information is not available
online, it will require a trip to the county Assessor’s Office to get the pertinent data.
Remember, you need the address to look up the records. You can also check with local
realtors to see what houses are worth in their neighborhood.
Fact #3. Checking marital status is surprisingly difficult outside of their home county.
Here’s why. Most people get married in the city and county where they live. Logic would
tell us that that makes sense. And, for purposes of checking, that is easy to check.
Conversely, most people get divorced where they live too. The problem is that one
county does not have a record of what happens in another county.
For example: Let’s say a couple gets married in New York City. That marriage is
recorded in New York County, NY. If they subsequently move to Oshkosh, Wisconsin
and later get divorced there, Winnebago County Wisconsin does not notify New York
County of the divorce. As far as New York County is concerned, they are still married.
Now, let’s suppose that the man goes to Las Vegas and gets married again. Clark
County, Nevada doesn’t check to see if he is already married in Wisconsin or New York
or anywhere else before the marriage license is issued. Now if you were checking for
his marriage records, where do you check?
Now here’s where it really gets fun. What’s to stop them from getting divorced in Reno,
Nevada or worse yet, in Mexico? It turns out that Guam has a cottage industry of
providing quickie divorces. Because Guam is a US Territory, divorces must be
recognized in all US states. Should you check Guam too? What about checking out a
woman’s marriage/divorce records; which current or maiden name do you look up? This
is why those marriage checks online are basically worthless. They only check where the
person currently lives.
For child support and alimony, you would have to search civil records in the jurisdiction
where the divorce occurred.
Fact #4. Criminal records are public and as such are easily searchable in every
jurisdiction in the USA. Again, the trick is knowing where to search. Most people think
that those online database companies check everything everywhere. You know, the
ones that say “Instant Nationwide” criminal checks. Not so. They only get records
where they can get them for free and most of the time that is from a state’s Department
of Corrections, the state prison system. This means that in these states you are only
getting felony convictions where they were sentenced to prison or proation. A person
could have a long history of misdemeanor crimes or an acquittal of a felony and you
would get no record of it. Even now in many parts of the of the country records must still
be searched in person at the county Superior or District Courthouse. Wherever this is
the case, you get no records at all when using those instant search companies.
FYI: In general, a misdemeanor is a crime punishable by up to one year in the county
jail. Felonies are crimes that are punishable by prison time exceeding one year.
Do it yourself. If your OL is local, go to your local Superior or District court and go to the
criminal court clerk’s office and tell the clerk that you would like to do a criminal records
search on a person. You will need to have their full legal name and date of birth. Ask the
clerk if the courts are consolidated in your county. Consolidated courts have records of
all the other courts in that county, so you only have to search in one place. For example all California courts are consolidated. Courts in some states are not. If your OL is not
local, you may want to use the services of a professional background checker to check
each location (jurisdiction) where he is from.
Here’s another problem. People tell me all the time that their county court offers online
criminal records searches that they can search for free and the person they are
checking lives in that county. Sounds great! And yes, it is true that there are many
places in the country where this is possible. The problem is, how long has that person
lived in that county and where was he/she from before that? For all you know, they have
only lived there a few weeks and before that they lived in another state where they were
just released from prison.
Fact #5. Criminal Checks do not include civil court checks. If a person has a restraining
order against him/her from their ex-spouse or jilted lover, that is recorded in civil court,
not criminal court. A criminal search does not reveal such records.
A professional reference checker’s trick. If you are able to get references from him/her
you’re going to love this. My company has been doing background checks since July
1994. Over these years we’ve learned many, many tricks to getting info from a variety of
sources. Years ago, while doing FAA and NRC (Federal Aviation Administration. &
Nuclear Regulatory Commission) background checks we were contracted to conduct
reference checks on job applicants. Under the federal requirements we were required to
do what I call a Reference Double Check. Here’s how it works: On the job application
the applicant was asked to list three personal references. We contact each of those
three references by phone and ask them if they know someone who knows the
“applicant” as well as they do. If they give us the name of someone already on the list,
we prompt them for another reference. Or goal is to get three references that are not
listed on the application and get a “real” reference from each of them.
My company has done thousands and thousands of reference checks, but these were
different and we have used this technique many times. Since no one has ever listed a
personal reference that will not say wonderful things about them, this is a great way to
get to someone who might actually say something revealing about the applicant. Using
this method, we would often get ex-spouses, disgruntled employees or employers,
angry neighbors, in-laws, etc. Remember that it is perfectly legal to get all of the above
info (except credit) and more on anyone anytime you feel like it. Where the laws come
into play is how you use the info. If you are using the info for private personal reasons
like a relationship you are free to do so.
Kit Fremin is the owner and founder of Background Check International. Since 1994 BCI has served
clients a varied as: the LA Times, Department of Defense, Mars, Inc., the UN, the NTSB and Calvary
Chapels nationwide. His website is: www.bcint.com and he can be e-mailed at kit@bcint.com or phoned
at 951-691-1088.
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