Increasingly former clients and prospective clients have been informing me that they have been rejected from employment based on criminal background checks which are erroneous. It appears that the companies that are in the business of doing criminal background checks on job applicants have no interest in reporting information to their customer/employers which are accurate. Often the data submitted is old, outdated, or simply wrong.
Some of the issues which I see with frequency are the following. (1) an arrest which results in the charges being dismissed are reported as a conviction; (2) an erroneous report stating that the defendant was convicted of a more serious charge than the defendant plead guilty to; (3) arrests being reported, which did not result in a conviction; (4) conviction listed erroneously for a person that was never convicted of any offenses.
The damage done to job applicant victims of this type of flawed and unreliable information is devastating.
Because the federal government has failed to monitor these reporting agencies it is important that everyone obtain a fingerprint check with the New Jersey State Police. This number can be found on the State Police Website. The number is (877) 503-5981. https://www.bioapplicant.com/nj
Once the fingerprints are obtained they will be sent to the New Jersey State Police for a record of all arrests and convictions, if any. Once that criminal history is obtained you can either move to expunge those arrests and convictions, if possible, or compare those records to what is on file with the criminal background reporting agencies. Further, if you are denied employment because of a criminal record, you must demand that the employer that denies employment give you the name and address of the agency which they used, so that you can obtain a copy of the information that was sent to the employer that rejected your job application. If the information was in error you can demand that it be checked and corrected, and if they refuse to do so, they can be sued civilly for deformation, and pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The law requires that criminal background agencies notify consumers when information is being sent to prospective employers.
However, often this is not done; therefore, the job applicant has no way of challenging the information that was supplied.
One such agency, HighRight Solutions was recently sued by the Federal Trade Commission for abuses, which includes the company’s failure to follow reasonable procedures to insure or help to prevent inaccurate information from being sent to employers. Although HighRight paid a fine of 2.6 million dollars, other agencies continue to report obviously inaccurate information to employers, and being responsible for thousands of people from being employed.
If you are faced with some of these issues and being denied employment because of your past history, you are urged to seek the counsel of an experienced New Jersey Expungement Lawyer, the Law Office of Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr.
Lastly, at a minimum if you are a victim of such abuse by a criminal background check agency you must file a complaint with the FTC or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which both have jurisdiction over this issue.
This is a public service blog provided to the people from the Law Office of Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr., Esq.
September 11, 2012
277 North Broad Street
P.O. Box 261
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Telephone No. (908) 354-7006
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