The United States Department of Justice statistics for 2002 reveal that 6.7 million people (one in every 32 adults) are jailed, in prison, or are released on probation or parole. 67.5% of all prisoners released are subsequently re-arrested for a serious misdemeanor or felony within three years. Additionally, twenty to thirty percent of job applications contain false information. A study performed by the Society for Human Resource Management found that fifty three percent of the study sample had given false information about length of employment, fifty one percent about past salaries and forty five percent falsely said they had no criminal records.

Moreover, employee theft is a $400 billion industry, estimated to take over 6% of all revenue. The recidivism rate for criminals is reported to be 67.5%, so the odds are likely that convicted felons will come through your doors seeking employment. Only by responsible screening practices can you protect your company and the public from those seeking to prey on the vulnerabilities of the unsuspecting.

In addition to protecting your employees and the public from malfeasance, you must also protect your organization from engaging in unlawful background check practices. The regulation central to background screening is the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) found in 15 U.S.C. section 1681 et seq. The FCRA has teeth and can expose your organization to real liability for failure to comply with its provisions. The Pre-employ.com family of companies has a dedicated staff and legal team focused on compliance and ensuring your screening process meets all federal requirements as well as applicable state and county ordinances.

Laws and regulations related to our industry are closely monitored for any changes affecting the services we provide. Examples of this are the California AB 655 requirements and the AB1068 amendments. We have regular updates through our commerce associations, and regular training on regulations and laws related to our industry. Any changes that may affect your company’s processes are communicated to ensure your compliance as well. We will also make suggestions if we feel that your process or policy could cause you a potential problem or create a non-compliance situation.

Your lead Customer Service Representative is the primary point of contact for all communication and relays all compliance updates to your organization and members. Our family of companies works with several legal firms as well as in-house legal experts to stay current on federal, state and local laws, regulations, or pending legislation ensuring consistent compliance. The executive management team receives weekly updates to make certain all requested searches are handled according to company guidelines and county, state and federal regulations. Our website has a section devoted to legislative updates, and is an additional vehicle for keeping our clients updated on important issues affecting the screening process.

As a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), we provide only Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) compliant services. All searches performed through our system are in full compliance with the FCRA as well as all other federal, state, local and international regulations.

Per the FCRA, applicants have the right to dispute background information that they feel is incorrect or incomplete. Our contact information is provided to the applicant so that they can get in touch with us directly. We handle the entire process for our clients and reinvestigate the information with the source (county courthouse, etc.) and report the results again to our customer for review/decision, eliminating virtually all of the work for our clients.

Through our applicant dispute department we field and average of 25 consumer dispute claims per month. Less than 1% of those claims result in a change to our original reporting.

As mandated by the FCRA, employers must provide notification that a background check will be done, and obtain the applicant’s consent before requesting a background check for employment purposes. This consent should be in the form of a document separate from the employment application. Our system provides compliant electronic forms, which can be modified at the discretion of the client.

If a company denies a position of employment based on the supplied report from Pre-employ.com, this constitutes adverse action. In this case, the organization has an obligation to provide the applicant with a notification of the decision, a copy of the report, a copy of the applicant’s consumer rights, and information on the supplier of the consumer report. Our system has built-in risk management features that handle the automatic sending of notification letters. Any dispute and applicant may have regarding the information contained in a background report is handled through our Compliance Department, available toll free, at 1-800-300-1821 ext 199.

Additional educational materials and compliance related information is available through our compliance department. This may include web based educational links, printed compliance information or ‘webinar’ based instructional offerings.