Background Checks

[RREB]

Wanting to find a legit background checking service. Not the scam ones that offer a check and want your credit card and then bill you monthly. Plenty of those around. I just want a one time check done from a legit service.
This is not for a check on anything hobby related. Just a personnel item.

Thanks for any help.

[RALPHEY BOY]

DPS Background check? try this page but you have to have their permission and there is a fee

https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/DpsWebsite/index.aspx

[Squarenot]

IMO, it depends why you want the background investigation and generally who the person is. For example, is it a G/F; potential corporate board member; neighbor; political opponent; potential employee; babysitter; little league coach? If it is a young person of say 18-22 years old being considered as a starting pitcher for the Rangers, that is different from a middle-aged business guy with whom you are considering a high dollar business relationship. It is also very different doing a background investigation on a covert basis vs an overt basis, where your guy knows and consents to the investigation.
A check of DPS will not tell you too much. Criminal and civil records checks in jurisdictions where your guy has lived and worked are generally a good start. A credit report is also a very good place to start. A signed consent is legally necessary, so I am told. Newspaper archives can also be a good source of information.
You may want to seek the services of a good private investigator with sufficient experience in such matters.

[natasteewsym]

Any guy who submits to, or pays, a background checking service has got to be one desperate moron. No disrespect.

[Squarenot]

Originally Posted by natasteewsym

Any guy who submits to, or pays, a background checking service has got to be one desperate moron. No disrespect.

WHA?

[natasteewsym]

Whoops; I misread the initial post. I was under the impression this was about p411 and such.

This is actually a decent question, disregard my previous post.

[GneissGuy]

I think there are a couple of levels of scam here.

In some cases, the background checking service simply does a very cursory check and collects the fee for a "real" check. Or has scams in the fees.

In cases, the background check service is mostly window dressing. For instance, an appliance repair company pays a "professional" company to do a "background check" on their employees so they can claim they did it. i.e. "All our service personnel have passed a background check, so you can let them in your home with confidence." The repair company doesn't really care enough to do a real background check, and may even prefer to not know about anything other than really serious crimes, because they lose too many employees that way.

They pay the cheapest provider, who knows their customers mainly want some sort of documentation that a check was done, and don't care that much how accurate it is. Some of us dug into this when a large national organization started doing background checks on their members. We dug into it a little and decided the checks were very cursory and were mainly window dressing.

Some services are pretty up front that they just do limited things like look for warrants or arrest records, and may not have records for some jurisdictions.

However, even a shoddy or cursory check has some value. It may catch quite a few of the baddies. Just don't put much faith in the fact it didn't find anything.

By the way, you'll be amazed what you can dig up yourself on people just by searching the internet.

[Slotgoop]

If you are in the state of TX, you can subscribe to publicdata.com for a very reasonable fee. You can then look up criminal records for people arrested or incarcerated in TX and see the detail of the charges and sentence. You can also look up drivers license data, professional licenses, or license plate registration. You can see the same data for other states too, but not all of them.

[natasteewsym]

I have subscribed to publicdata before, and all the information is EXTREMELY outdated.