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3

It's for employees, I'm not a stalker!

Every company I've heard of has some sort of long, old school process for doing background checks, including faxing stuff to them.

I'm sure their are good ones out there, but a cursory search on Google didn't turn anything up.

Requirements:

  • Is allowed to cost money (obviously they all will)
  • Must be able to verify either SSN or DL as valid
  • Must check for some sort of criminal record

Bonus if it has an API.

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closed as not constructive by Eight Days of Malaise, phwd♦ Feb 10 '12 at 17:45

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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Looks like http://www.beenverified.com/ offers what you are after - it is pretty cheap and seems aimed at small businesses, and does check criminal records.

And theres an iPhone app too: http://mobile.venturebeat.com/2009/12/24/beenverified-iphone-free-background-checks/

And a nice rich API, which even provides access to check the SSN: http://www.beenverified.com/home/web_service_api

“We made it so that a small business can run these checks one at a time, as they need them,” said Joshua Levy, co-founder and chief executive of the company.

The service conducts the test with the candidate’s permission. Using a full name and email address, the service can check a varying range of records, including criminal courts records, educational degrees, license information and employment history. The service will go to primary sources, such as the Harvard Business School, to verify data such as college degrees. One piece of data costs $10 to check. But running a criminal background check on an executive can run as much as $90.

REALsearch.com also has Background checks.... https://realsearch.com/index.asp

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up vote 1 down vote

I can say that sites such as MyLife, and Intellius are all frauds. I've tried them all. They pretty much charge you to see information commonly presented in the yellowpages. I'm surprised some lawyer hasn't class actioned these sites. If you don't believe me, find a friend with a DUI or similar on their record and see what comes up.

The problem is that most states have archaic and expensive methods for pulling criminal and background records. If you want proof, just google "LA County Criminal Records". Some counties provide this information for free, but they are few and far between.

I'm looking for something similar. I run a site called https://rentersfriend.com. We provide credit and background checks on apartment listings. I've switched around our background data provider 6 times in the last year and still haven't found one that completely satisfies what I need. Unfortunately the nature of the beast is that high quality checks are slow and expensive.

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