The Danger of Selling Cheap Background Checks
The Fort Worth Star Telegram reports that the family of a 77-year old Alzheimers' patient is alleging that she was raped by a man hired to sit with her. The sitter turned out to be a registered sex offender.
The family is suing both the company that placed Michael Anthony Gilbert, who was registered as a sex offender with the State of Texas, with the patient and the background screening firm that conducted the flawed background check. According to the plaintiff's original petition, which includes Gilbert's employment application and his background check, the criminal background check was limited to a search of the records in a private criminal records database.
This should be yet another wake up call for our profession.
Can the screening firm be held legally liable for giving the customer what they asked for, however inadequate it might be? Prior cases suggest that the outcome may depend on the efforts undertaken by the screening firm to educate the client on the risks associated with undue reliance on the database report. In reality, the screening firm's insurance carrier will likely settle the matter before the case ever gets to court.
Perhaps the question for our industry to consider is not whether selling database reports as stand alone background checks is legally defensible, rather we should ask if it is ethically defensible to allow a misinformed or simply cheap client to do so. By selling the cheap database reports as background checks, screening firms are intentionally ignoring the foreseeable consequences of their actions. In effect, they are selling a car radio and calling it a whole car.
The weaknesses in database products are well known inside our profession. However, the database companies and many of their resellers make a lot of fast money marketing the database reports as "national" or "nationwide" criminal background checks to employers, little leagues, churches, and other organizations serving vulnerable populations.
The database companies claim that these organizations cannot afford to conduct more extensive background checks, so the database report is better than nothing. In reality, these organizations pay their electricity and other utilities, pay staff, buy office supplies, and incur all of the expenses associated with a going concern. Just because they have never budgeted or paid for background checks does not mean that they cannot do so.
I'm certain that the agency that hired Michael Gilbert wishes that they had run a better background check on him and I'm certain his 77-year old victim and her family wishes they had.
Interesting case, and good info to have when trying to educate clients. It's a constant challenge to be able to convince a client (or potential client) that there are no good cheap backgrounds, and even a bare minimum background will cost at least $100 in order to check criminal county, state & federal records for one location. We emphasis that they should check every location the applicant has lived, worked or gone to school in for the last seven years. With a Nationwide Sex Offender Database provided by the DoJ, there is no reason not to include that in every check also.
Cheap database companies like the defendant and the related companies (many now owned by credit report agencies which are competitors of legitimate PIs), offer a cheap 'solution' that is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Why hasn't the FTC cracked down on these monster Database aggregators offering "nationwide" searches when we know they are obvious falsehoods?
Posted by: Brian Poirier | March 20, 2007 at 08:46 AM
Another example of you get what you pay for. You wouldn't believe how many calls I get from people who use these "quick-fix" services to no avail.
Posted by: Penny Potter | March 20, 2007 at 08:05 AM
Mike,
As usual you remind us of the necessity to do thorough criminal background screens. What amazes me the most is that companies like the ones you make example of just don't seem to get it until something happens. It's as if they are willing to crap shoot and hope the dice come up in their favor. In this case the dice came up against them.
We had a similar incident here in New Hampshire involving a daycare of all places. They hired a young man to work with children. The guy was molesting kids for months until he got caught. After his arrest and the subsequent investigation it was discovered he had a history in another state, a neighboring state that was not part of the criminal background check. Why? Well New Hampshire only requires daycare centers and companies that provide care to the elderly to do a simple "state wide" check. It fills the square, but that's about all it does. It is a very unreliable way to do things but at $15 it is an attractive alternative for a company trying to save a few dollars.
In this case the woman lost her daycare. Incidentally, the young man had a history of sexual assault in Massachusetts. Had they done a more thorough background check, used a bit more diligence they would have known.
All we can do is attempt to educate. Reporting incidents like you do to the public is a good way to do it. We all have a duty to educate the public on the dangers of doing cheap background screens and what the price of such searches can ultimately mean for them.
Jim Mavrogeorge
General Manager
NH Background Investigations, LLC
Posted by: Jim Mavrogeorge | March 15, 2007 at 07:34 AM