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Pre-Employment Screening
Pre-Employment Screening Frequently Asked Questions
General Information
- What do I need to conduct a background check?
Have your applicant fill out and sign an authorization form. Either fax the form to Merchants or enter the request at our website.
- Do you need a person's date of birth?
Yes, as most criminal searches are searched by name and date of birth.
- Do I need a person's authorization to conduct a background check?
If you are an employer, federal law states that you must obtain prior authorization before conducting a background check. In addition, you must keep the authorization on file for a period of three years.
- What is the difference between the various criminal search types?
- County Criminal searches are conducted by sending a court runner to the court house to pull records from the county clerks office. County courts are generally the most up to date records available. Typical turnaround time is 2 days for clear records.
- Statewide criminal searches are conducted by searching state-based criminal records indexes. Statewide records may or may not contain the outcome of an arrest. Statewide records can be as much as 90 days old or greater.
- Federal records searches are conducted by searching federal-based records indexes. Federal records may contain limited case information. Federal records can be 90 days old or greater.
- National criminal records are conducted by searching a large records index. National criminal records searches do not include every jurisdiction and may be limited in case information.
- What is your turnaround for complete reports?
We generally advise our clients that turnaround times vary between 48 - 72 hours, depending on the nature of the search being conducted and the availability of resources, i.e. previous employers, educational institution response, etc.
- What locations are the hardest to get criminal background results?
Hands down, New Jersey is the most difficult state from which to acquire criminal background results. Due to the complexity of the court infrastructure in New Jersey, only felony searches are available in this state.
- What information do you need to conduct the checks?
In order to expedite the process, we would like to have all of the below-listed information.
- Date of birth
- Social Security Number
- Copy of application
- Do you service Canadian locations?
Yes. However criminal searches are not available in Ontario.
- Can you provide DOT driving records?
Yes. We currently provide DOT-compliant DMV records to several corporations.
- What information do you get on employment checks?
We ask the following questions on employment verifications:
- Dates of employment
- Title
- Ending Pay
- Duties
- Reason for Leaving
- Eligible for Rehire
The information that is returned depends on the willingness of the former employer to provide information. When necessary, we send a signed authorization to the former employer in order to acquire the necessary information. This may require your staff to fax an authorization form to us at times. All employment verifications are done by calling the employer directly, except in situations where the employer has outsourced verifications to an automated system.
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Customer Service
- Do you dedicate employees to clients or do all of your agents handle reference requests based on workflow?
All requests are handled on a workflow basis.
- Are you adequately staffed now to handle our account? If not, how much lead-time would you need to gear up?
Yes, we are fully prepared to handle your account. The only lead time we would need would be to enter your locations into our system and provide user ID's and passwords to your staff.
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Billing Questions
- Can I pay by credit card?
Yes. We now accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
- How am I billed?
Merchants bills clients at the end of the month. Terms are net 30. Clients are provided with a monthly invoice detailing all search requests from the prior 30 days.
- What is contained on the invoice?
The invoice is grouped by name and provides details of each search conducted for that person. In addition, a summary page of all searches by category is provided. For multi-location clients, Merchants can provide a master invoice broken down by individual location.
- Can you handle multiple locations with separate billing?
We have the capability to bill our multi-location clients at the location level or by providing a master invoice subtotaled by location.
- What additional fees can I expect?
Fees generally fall in to three categories and are passed directly through without markup. They include, but are not limited to the following:
- Count court fees - some counties in the U.S. charge an access fee. The fee currently ranges from $2 - $18. Court fees are charged per name, per look up. On average fees will add between 3% - 5% to the overall cost of a background check.
- Education Verification fees - some universities outsource education to independent companies, who charge a fee to conduct the verification.
- Employer fees - some employers charge for employment verification, or outsource verifications to outside companies.
- Do you charge a premium for any locations?
The following fees are passed along to our clients:
- Out of country searches incur additional charges.
- Some counties incur additional court fees
- State DMV fees
- What fees do you charge for software, establishing accounts or other non-direct charges?
There are no fees for establishing an account or for software.
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Compliance Questions
- Are you Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant?
Merchants Information Solutions, Inc. is fully compliant with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Our documents and procedures are regularly reviewed for compliance to state and federal regulations.
- Do you have insurance?
In addition to general liability insurance, Merchants carries a $1million Errors and Omission policy and is licensed and bonded by the State of Arizona.
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Technical Questions
- Do you perform on-line processing?
We offer a fully-functional on-line order and retrieval system that enables you to place orders and retrieve through a secure web portal. The system is designed to help even the most inexperienced user to quickly order background reports. Our web-based ordering system provides partial reports, daily status updates and enables users to use a variety of methods by name, SSN or date to search through completed reports. Reports are provided in HTML format and may be viewed on any computing platform, including Macintosh. The system also enables companies to set Administrator-level accounts and sub-accounts for multiple locations.
Can you notify me by email when my report is complete?
Yes, we have the ability to notify two additional email addresses when reports have been completed and posted to our web site.
- Can I view partial reports at your website?
Yes, reports are updated at our website as the information comes in.
- Do you provide instant results?
Many search types are instant and available within minutes of ordering, including DMV, SSN and Credit Reports.
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