Be careful with credit checks, everyone. Running credit checks (or any other type of consumer report) on customers, employees, and job applicants likely will trigger the provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. There are a number of requirements that you MUST follow under the FCRA in order to have any kind of report run on your customers.
For those of you who use background check providers for these purposes, you still have to have very specific consents and disclosures and you can't just take the forms they give you as-is. There are specific changes and edits you have to make to them (no matter what they might tell you). If you're running any kind of check on customers, employees, and job applicants, hit me up off-list so we can chat about what you're doing. FCRA violations are easy to rack up, extremely difficult to defend against if your practices are wrong, and very expensive. However, at the same time, they are easy to avoid. If you get the right forms to the customer/employee/applicant and get them signed first, it's pretty simple. It's a 1-2 hour investment in time up front to save you tens of thousands of dollars later. Doug -----Original Message----- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Keefe John via Af Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 9:46 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] credit checks You could start by looking up their circuit court case history. Then you could look at the federal court case history to see if they have any bankruptcies. Keefe On 10/7/2014 9:35 AM, Adam Moffett via Af wrote: > My mission this morning is to figure out how I'm going to do credit > checks on potential new customers. > > While I'm on hold with Experian, I wonder if anybody else is doing > credit checks who can share what they're doing. What company are you > using? How much does it cost? How hard was it to get set up? Doug Hass Associate 312.786.6502 Franczek Radelet P.C. Celebrating 20 Years | 1994-2014 300 South Wacker Drive Suite 3400 Chicago, IL 60606 312.986.0300 - Main 312.986.9192 - Fax www.franczek.com Circular 230 Disclosure: Under requirements imposed by the Internal Revenue Service, we inform you that, unless specifically stated otherwise, any federal tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purposes of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or tax-related matter herein. ________________________________________ For more information about Franczek Radelet P.C., please visit franczek.com. The information contained in this e-mail message or any attachment may be confidential and/or privileged, and is intended only for the use of the named recipient. If you are not the named recipient of this message, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment thereto, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender and delete all copies. ________________________________________ Franczek Radelet is committed to sustainability - please consider the environment before printing this email
