SRC INFORMATION SOLUTIONS

A social trace is an essential part of criminal history verification

A case history--Could this happen to you?

Caught by a Social Trace! Criminal history in another name!

A true story from SRC in Shreveport, Louisiana, May 2009: A social trace turned up another name used by a job applicant which, when researched, revealed a felony theft conviction, a conviction that would not have been found without running a social trace which revealed the other name and other places lived that were not disclosed on the job application.

Court records are searched against names and birthdates. If your job applicant gives you a false name, misspelled name, skewed name in any way, and you run your search based on that false name, you will get a false clear, false no record. The social trace will help you with researching the right names! It will also help you to know which jurisdictions to search.

Here’s what happened:

A job applicant listed his name as “Frank Job” and said that he lived the past seven years in the Shreveport-Bossier area. Based on that information, the employer requested a criminal record search of Shreveport-Bossier, and a clear, no record was found for the name of “Frank Job.” Things were looking good for Frank’s application until the social trace came back.

From the social trace, in addition to the name “Frank Job,” the name, “John Doe” was found associated with that social security number, along with other non disclosed places lived. Further research was done on “John Doe” in the locations revealed by the social trace. And, felony theft convictions were found for “John Doe” in one of those places! A theft of more than $200,000 !!! “Frank Job” was also “John Doe.” “Frank Job” did not have a record, but “John Doe” did.

This employer performed a quality background investigation by ordering a social trace + criminal court record search and by doing so he had the more descriptive criminal history picture.

If you omit the social trace, you omit a step in the verification process and you end up with a partial picture. You might be okay, because not everyone has a troubled past, but because you are missing pieces of the puzzle, you will not see the larger picture, either for the good or for the bad, if you don’t order both kinds of searches!

Do your due diligence!

On the job application, ask the candidate to list the last seven years where he has lived. Based on locations the job applicant listed, order a criminal court history search + run a social trace. Then follow up with any additional research if needed.

Due diligence Pays!

Janet Bryan Hinton, Director of Client Services, Southern Research Company, Inc.

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