• Polls

Investigation Companies Barred In Reporting Publically Available Information

April 12, 2012 under Employment Screening

If the information is available using a web browser with or without a search engine, forget all logic about recently passed state laws especially in California.  If the reason for the background check is for employment, all screening companies including licensed Private Investigation companies are barred from reporting criminal cases depending on the state and the circumstances of the case.  That means we are barred/gagged from reporting information an average person can find online using a web browser.

California Civil Code 1786 prohibits the reporting of any criminal case (Felony or Misdemeanor) 7 years from the date of CONVICTION for all Investigation companies including Credit Reporting agencies.  What does this mean for employers?

BEWARE.

You can go through an employment screening process with a person holding any California address (real or otherwise) and the senario is scary…Murderer or Sex Offender, regardless of how many years in jail, a conviction, Felony or not… and that person is reported as ”No Criminal Record Found” by screening companies when you receive the report.  So the person leaves prison on parole yesterday and his conviction was this day more than 7 years ago and his conviction is washed away from background check reports held by Private Investigation companies.  The penalty for a private investigation company to report the person with a conviction outside of 7 years (regardless of the type of crime) in CA is a minimum of a $10,000 penalty.

Clearly the law is protecting the felons in California at the peril of the citizens of all the other states because this reporting law must be complied with by all Investigation companies regardless of where they are licensed.  For our clients and other employers and business owners, I want you know what you aren’t being told because of new emerging laws, and the risks of hiring a serious criminal at your firm are now more real probable than ever.

 

comments: 1 »

Resume Fraud Steals Your Job

September 27, 2011 under Credentialing, Employment Screening, Resume Fraud

If you’re generally honest and are not comfortable with inflating your resume, you are in a group getting smaller by the day.  We’ve had two issues with fraud this week alone.  Both are a serious indicator of the path we are on as a global society unless real solutions surface in the mainstream. 

What if you knew the person who received a job over you was outright lying on their resume?  But besides that you knew about collaboration of a network of conspirators committing document fraud or practicing collusion to confirm false information of a person competing for your job?

  This week I was approached by a concerned citizen in this very position.  I really am not happy about explaining on a blog how this can happen and how a person may “beat” a general background check so I’ll not explain the particulars of this new sophistication among those committing this type of fraud. 

What I will say is resume fraud is a type of theft without many consequences.  What’s the worst thing which happens?  The offender gets fired from a job [once the fraud is brought to light] they never would have received in the first place?  As our society’s compass of right and wrong erodes, this issue increases.

So a fraud alert from an unfairly affected job applicant was one fraud issue.  You may be affected by this every time you receive a job and just not know about directly.  The second one was a finding of a “front” employer.  The front “employer” has everything to gain by changing an employment start date to show a consultant “employee” has more experience than they really do. 

You may be asking what you can do about this?  Stay tuned for a public profile version of egoCertified with the solution.  Your participation will be the reversal of this trend and the honest applicant will shine above the resume fraud.

comments: 1 » tags: , , , , , , , ,

Good, Bad & The Ugly

August 24, 2011 under Employment Screening, Resume Fraud

Innovative or crazy?  Everyday we are clobbered with the “ugly” problems of our society.  Is there no one to rescue us…or at least lead us on a path of a few real solutions?  It dawned on me during this recent wake-up call of a business competition.  Our whole society is becoming entrenched with status-quo business solutions to benefit from the ever-growing problems.  Does that mean we may have created a society that has figured out it is profitable to have these problems around?  There are many market needs and some market “needs” should be left unfilled.  Candy is bad for you but oh man there is a need for that stuff.

Oh that’s just crazy…get rid of candy? Ever hear the crazy idea cancer won’t be cured because of how much money it commands?  Who knows but problems create new markets.  Is there a business person out there waiting in the shadows ready to pounce on the next crisis? 

If you like a western, maybe you loath the bad guy and you root for the good guy, right?  I’m starting to wonder if we are starting to root for the bad guy now in our society.  Or maybe we’ve decided there are no good or bad guys – only grey area “people”.

Well our company profits from the growing distrust and worry of bad (or grey people) lurking in our circles, and I have to stop and re-evaluate.  We want to wear the good hats and save the day, but we need a real solution that changes the trend.  Many years (too many) I wanted a solution to prove I had the credentials I was listing on my resume.  Back then only a few were skeptical of what was listed on a resume because most of us were being pretty honest.  Now, resumes reads like skilled “fiction”.  And for those of you with some higher moral standard to tell the truth, you are washed out like sand on a beach, but I have a solution for you. 

For those of you which want to be part of a solution…be the good “guys” or “gals” and are telling the truth – egoCertified is the way for you to stand out for your honesty.

comments: 4 » tags: , , , , , , ,

egoCertified™ Pilot Program

June 23, 2011 under Credentialing, Pilot Program

Whether you are a licensed professional, just starting your career or a business management team creating proposals, egoCertified™ is a way for you to stand out in the job market or among your competitors.  You own and manage the egoCertified™ report and you have the control over the truth reported about your credentials.  Once the report is created, egoCertified™ can follow and update all your amazing accomplishments.  Use egoCertified™ to sell yourself in the job market showing you didn’t just make claims on your resume… You earned them!

Cleves Research, a licensed private investigation company, has started a pilot program looking for job seekers out of work.  We are accepting 150 IT, Medical or other professionals for our Pilot program for FREE.  Our objective in this pilot program is to show egoCertified™ reports will assist our participants in getting a job.  We are already underway by receiving participants from AITP Dallas (Association of IT Professionals aitpdallas.org ) and DiRTi (Disaster Incident Response Training Institute dirti.org .)

If you are interested in signing up for egoCertified, email ssutila@cluso.com.

comments: 0 » tags: , , , , , , ,

Get the Identity Wrong, Then Don’t Bother

June 13, 2011 under Employment Screening

Is there a big difference between last name “Sim” and “Sims” on a background check report?  The answer is so much a YES that if you get the identity wrong, don’t bother continuing with the rest of a criminal report.  If your existing company returns a background report with a notation “Area of Concern” or flag with an identity and you figure out after-the-fact the name was spelled wrong on the searches conducted (for the criminal portion), throw away the result and start over because someone may be cleared which has a criminal record.  It happens all the time.  We correct an intentional or unintentional name spelling and a case appears.

How do we fix this problem for our clients? We eliminate wasteful criminal research based on incorrect identity by cross-checking identity and spelling first, flagging it early and allowing our clients to make corrections before the criminal research begins.  Automated and integrated systems don’t have decision checkpoints to stop a background check until the identity is reconfirmed and corrected, but we do.

comments: 0 » tags: , , , , , ,

Hiring Sight Unseen

May 29, 2011 under Employment Screening

I know many of you are doing it this days…hiring sight unseen.  Getting your resumes and job applicants from electronic applicant systems with keyword skill searches?  If you do, you have a potential security breach.  If you don’t have a security department and/or located in the same city as the person you are hiring, how can you be sure you are hiring the owner of the identity information listed on the application.  If the applicant is sending you ID copies through fax and scans, how do you the same person is the one showing up for work?  Who’s checking the ID matches to the person physically?  My guess is many of you may be “trusting” those anonymous candidates on the internet and hoping they are not using false identities or swapping ID with their criminal-free cousins.  If you read this statement and then sleep on it and start to be concerned, you should be using our full service background investigation company instead of one of our fully “automated” competitors.  We anticipate candidate deception and help keep those using false Identities from passing our backgrounds by flagging concerns and asking key questions before criminal research starts.

comments: 0 » tags: , , , , , , ,