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Background Check Wrongly Says Job Seeker is Sex Offender

Written by COLLEEN CURRY Friday, 02 September 2011 08:53

Samuel Jackson thought his job offer from Optics Planet was a done deal -- but then a routine background check gone awry surprised the company and Jackson with a detail even he didn't know: his name appeared on national list of registered sex offenders.

According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumer reporting agencies are required follow reasonable procedures to assure accuracy and to notify individuals when a report may adversely affect their job application

Jackson, 27, alleges in a suit filed in U.S. district court last week that the consumer reporting agency that ran his background check, Infotrack Information Services, carelessly mixed him up with people who shared his name and might have cost him and countless others potential jobs.

"It's alarming if you think about it because you wonder how many common names go through this," Jackson told ABC News.

Sharon Dietrich, an attorney with Community Legal Resources of Philadelphia, said the answer is many, many people with common names that go through similar battles with background check companies to get their names cleared.

"We see lots and lots of examples of background checks done wrong," said Dietrich, who noted that more than 80 percent of companies now use background checks to screen potential employees. "And for some people, that can mean the difference between working and not working."

When Consumer Reporting Agencies Get it Wrong

In October 2010, Jackson was offered a job as a live chat response specialist for Optics Planet, an Illionois-based online catalog for binoculars, camera lenses and other optical equipment. The company then contracted Infotrack to run a background track, and Infotrack returned information tying Jackson to seven "possible matches" from the national sex offender registry, according to the suit.

Optics Planet later reneged the job offer, which Jackson suspects is because of the faulty criminal reporting, according to his lawyer, Christopher Wilmes. Optics Planet would not confirm to Jackson that the criminal report had any bearing on their decision to rescind the offer, and the company did not return calls for comment from ABC News.

The background check misidentified Jackson, who is a white male in his twenties, as a black male in his fifties who had been convicted of sex crimes in states where Jackson has never lived.

"It seemed like a fishing expedition," Jackson said. "It was outlandish. It's absurd that I would be tied in to these heinous acts."

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/background-check-wrongly-ids-job-applicant-sex-offender/story?id=14405696

By COLLEEN CURRY

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Author of this article: COLLEEN CURRY

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