OnYourMark, LLC Blog

This month‘s Pro is Ellen Rohr, Production Manager at OnYourMark, LLC. A manager as well as expert genealogist and researcher, Ellen provides places online to research candidate backgrounds.

Employers, landlords and property managers have a potential liability if they do not know the past histories of current and potential employees or tenants. Employees have greater access to corporate assets and information. Employment and tenant background checks are a necessary cost of doing business. Doing your homework before hand will help avoid lawsuits and costly hiring mistakes.

Where do you start?
You and your company can be held liable for the actions of a new employee or tenants, especially if you did not perform a background check. The first and most important thing is to have current and potential employees and tenants sign a disclosure form giving you authorization to perform a background check. Failure to do this infringes on personal privacy. Be specific in your release as to what types of information you will be retrieving. Examples are: credit reports, academic records, social security number, personal references, driving records, criminal records, workman’s compensation, candidate identity, address history, etc.

Background Checks
There are many private organizations that will do background checks for you. Costs ranging from about $30-$5-600. Companies such as US Search are known for these services, but merely search public records that you can search on your own for free.

Personal References
Not only ask for references, but actually call the references and take the time to talk to the person on the other end. Ask questions. How long have you known this person? If they can answer, ask them what they see as the person’s strengths and weaknesses.

Internet Search
Go to HotBot or Google and enter the candidate’s name in quotes on the search form (ex: “John Doe”). This search may return personal homepages on the individual, giving you a little bit more background in how they spend their spare time. You may find the candidate’s name listed on association, licensing board, or hobbyist websites. You may even search for the candidate’s email address in the same manner, leading to forum posts or other online activity.

Credit Reports
Credit reports are simple to do and are available as one-time reports or as a subscription service through an accredited agency. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion all offer the ability to order credit reports online. Credit reports will give you information such as last-known name and address, and sometimes even current employment. It will also gives you a credit history. Do they pay their bills on time, are they responsible?

Court Records
Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (CCAP) is a free service that provides public access to the records of the Wisconsin circuit courts. The records are open to the public view under Wisconsin’s Open Records Law (sec. 19.31-19.39, Wisconsin Statutes). Some of the available records included in this database are felony, construction lien, misdemeanor, criminal traffic, civil, family (divorce, custody, etc.), non-traffic ordinance violations, hospital lien, incarcerated person, juvenile judgement, other lien, probate, small claims, traffic forfeiture, tax warrant, unemployment compensation and workers compensation.

To search CCAP go to wcca.wicourts.gov. Read the agreement and click “I agree.” You will be brought to a search page where you can enter a person’s name. Put in the name and any other information that is known about the person. If you get no results, try different spellings of first names. Kenneth might be in the records base as Ken, Margaret as Maggie, etc.

In 1997, the State of Wisconsin enacted the Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Law. This law was created to monitor and track people convicted of sex crimes and to provide access to this information for police, victims and the general public. The database is online and available free of charge at offender.doc.state.wi.us/public/. There is also a nationwide database available at ChildSafeNetwork.org which lists over 400,000 registered sex offenders.

Voter Registration Records are easy to access through the local courthouse and often are very effective means of determining the validity of a persons identity. Voter registration records will provide name, current address or address for the most recent election, past addresses from former elections, age, date of birth and social security number.

Uniform Commercial Code (UCCs) documents and Tax Liens document to the public that a given asset has been put up for collateral. The assets are registered to prevent the owner from using the same asset repeatedly. If you are using an item as collateral for a security deposit, checking the UCC documents will ensure that the item has not already been used. UCCs are filed at both county and state levels. At the county level, they’re in the county clerk & recorder’s office; at the state level, in the Secretary of State’s office.

Wisconsin or your state’s law may prohibit you from using certain types of information in your hiring or leasing practices. Be wary of any information you do obtain and be sure it is being used properly.

Links Mentioned in this Article:

- ussearch.com
- hotbot.com
- google.com
- equifax.com
- experian.com
- transunion.com
- wcca.wicourts.gov
- offender.doc.state.wi.us/public/
- childsafenetwork.org

What would you like to ask the pro? Email your questions to askthepro@OnYourMark.com!