What is the FCRA: How Are Online Background Checks Governed?
Check social networking sites People post the darnedest things about themselves on sites like Facebook and Myspace. Ask for a credit report Free credit reports are available to Americans yearly. You can request that whomever you're checking out shares his or her report with you. Search for a criminal record You need to know if you and your family is safe when letting strangers into your lives. Court cases are a matter of public record.
Go to criminalsearches. You will need to watch out for scam companies. Look around at several companies to find the average price for a background check and avoid any companies that are too low or too high. If you want to save some money and you have some time, you can do many of the same checks yourself. You might also dig up information on a person's habits or character that a professional might not consider. They comb Google, Facebook and other information websites to find out details that the person has willingly shared.
A Google search could turn up other things about the person that might make you think twice, too. However, you probably won't see important details about whether they've been arrested or evicted in the past.
Luckily, most court information is public record. To find it, go to your state's official government website or find the information you need at the National Center for State Courts. Make sure you search every state that the person you're checking has lived in.
How to Do a Free Background Check
After that, you might want to drill down to discover any felony and misdemeanor convictions on the county and city level. Keep an eye out for civil judgments, too, such as a bankruptcies and court orders to pay debts. In most cases, a credit report can't be pulled without a legitimate business purpose and written permission. A good strategy for screening a roommate would be to ask him or her to volunteer a report. If you hold a driving offence, criminal record or have ever been in financial difficulties then this information can easily be found online too.
Online profiles are often overlooked as people tend to forget or be unaware of what information is out there for public eyes to see. How is your online persona? Many employers admit to trawling websites to get information on potential employees before even offering an interview.
These searches can become more intense if you are then offered the job.
How to Do a Free Background Check Online | HowStuffWorks
Are your social media pages safe? If they can be viewed by the public, just how professional are you going to look online? Another problem is that the information that is available online may be inaccurate and might need removing or updating at the very least. Performing a background check will at least show you what information is out there for all to see.
Dirty deeds are uncovered dirt cheap with these background check resources
Of course, the service can be used the other way around too with websites, such as PeopleLooker , being a useful tool to find out information about potential roommates or dates. A free background check on yourself can bring up some unexpected results and these can vary depending on what type of background check methods you decide to use.
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If you use a dedicated background check service then the type of information you can expect to find will be relating to public records and individual accounts such as social media etc. If you have posted an embarrassing photo or Tweeted something controversial and forgotten about it, it will still be there for the public to view and this, unfortunately, builds a picture of who you are.
Even if your records are squeaky clean and your social media accounts are only open for friends to see, there is still likely to be a whole host of information about you online that will need editing or removing. But when you try to search for the more hidden personal data, then this job becomes difficult. There are several ways in which you can perform an online background check online; you can either perform the check yourself or get help. The benefits of performing an online background check is that it can be easy, quick to do and free.
Free Background Check Search
You will inevitably be limited by what you are legally allowed to access though, so bear this in mind. The fastest and most obvious way to perform an online background check is to search for your information using search engines. Personal emails, private banking, medical records, and legal information is all available online but not available to search as they contain zero links for search engines to trawl.
This information is found in the deep web, a place where private detectives can search and also some websites such as Pipl. Is your address online? And more importantly, is this information accessible to the public? Take a look at websites such as White Pages which exists for US-based users only.
This website allows you to enter a name and address and will then reveal a profile of who lives there, where they have lived previously, their ages and people they are associated with. If you sign up to this service then other information is available online too. Although the clue is in the name, not everyone realizes that public records are available for the public to search.
Word of warning though, this information can be time-consuming to search and also complicated to understand.