ADP Screening Background Check Errors

If an ADP Screening and Selection Services background check is standing between you and a job, an inaccurate report is not something you have to accept. ADP Screening and Selection Services, Inc. is a consumer reporting agency under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), so you can demand your file, force a real investigation, and recover damages when a false report costs you work. Our Employment Background Checks page covers screening generally; this page is about ADP's screening arm — where the dispute actually goes, why so many people mail it to the wrong state, and the driving-record problem that hits commercial drivers hardest.

What is ADP Screening and Selection Services?

ADP Screening and Selection Services, Inc. is the employment-screening subsidiary of Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (NYSE: ADP), the payroll and human-resources company. The screening entity is a Colorado corporation formed on June 3, 1986 and remains in good standing on Colorado's business-entity register. Its working operations are in Fort Collins, Colorado, while its parent is headquartered in Roseland, New Jersey — a split that causes real problems for consumers.

The product menu is broad, which matters when you are working out what actually sank your application: criminal-record searches; employment, education, professional and credential verifications; drug and medical screening; electronic I-9 and E-Verify; and screening rules keyed to the hiring location. ADP also has a documented history as a bulk purchaser and reseller of state motor vehicle records — established by federal litigation, not marketing copy. Most customers already run payroll through ADP, so the screen arrives inside a hiring workflow the employer controls.

Yes, ADP is still in the background-screening business

Many applicants are told ADP left screening years ago. It did not. ADP's annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025 says: "Our employee background screening services business offers background checking services that are subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act." Source. The confusion has two sources: ADP's filings shifted from "employee screening and selection services" to "background screening services," and the subsidiary dropped off ADP's list of significant subsidiaries after fiscal 2019 — a disclosure threshold, not a sale.

Why your dispute goes to Colorado, not New Jersey

Search for an ADP address and you get One ADP Boulevard, Roseland, New Jersey — the parent's global headquarters and the principal address on the Colorado entity's filing. It is not a dispute channel, and the FCRA's reinvestigation clock does not start because you mailed a payroll company's corporate office. The address the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes for consumer file requests is the Fort Collins operations site, addressed to Consumer Support.

How to contact ADP Screening and Selection Services

These are the consumer-facing details the CFPB publishes in its list of consumer reporting companies:

• Mailing address: ADP Screening & Selection Services, Inc., Attn: Consumer Support, 2950 East Harmony Road, Suite 130, Fort Collins, CO 80528
• Phone: 888-606-7868, Option 2
• Website: adpselect.com — then click "Applicant Resources"
• Free file disclosure: ADP states it will provide a free report completed in the past two years if you ask and it has a file on you

Confirm the address by phone before mailing — the CFPB list is republished annually and screeners relocate compliance operations quietly. Send disputes certified mail, return receipt requested, and keep copies. Note also that a report "completed in the past two years" is narrower than your FCRA right to everything in your file. If a wrong record is sitting there waiting to resurface on the next employer's order, ask for the file itself.

Common ADP Screening and Selection Services errors we see

These failure patterns match ADP's actual product mix rather than a generic list:

• Driving records showing suspensions, violations, or a license status belonging to a different licensee
• Criminal records matched to you because you share a name or date of birth with someone else
• Expunged, sealed, or dismissed cases still reported as convictions or as open charges
• Employment, education, or credential checks returned as "unable to verify" when the information is true
• Drug-screen or medical-screen results attached to the wrong candidate file, or reported without medical review
• Wrong identifiers — misspelled name, wrong Social Security number, wrong date of birth — pulling another person's history into your report

Driving-record errors: the CDL, trucking, and delivery problem

This is the category most specific to ADP. Federal court records establish that ADP Screening and Selection Services acquired state driver's-license records in bulk — a wholesale data feed rather than one lookup at a time. Bulk data ages badly: lifted suspensions stay on the feed, violations get attributed to the wrong licensee when two drivers share a name, and out-of-state history gets stitched onto the wrong record because matching runs on name and date of birth rather than license number.

For a CDL holder, delivery driver, or anyone in a DOT-regulated role, that is not a paperwork annoyance — those employers often have no discretion, and a disqualifying entry ends the process automatically. If your ADP motor vehicle report shows a suspension you never had, pull your official state DMV abstract and dispute with it attached. The state record is the authority; the reseller's copy is not.

Errors that hide inside the employer's ADP platform

Because screening is sold as an add-on to the payroll platform the employer already uses, the report, the pre-adverse-action notice, and the rejection can all reach you through the employer's ADP instance. Applicants often cannot tell whether the problem came from the screening company or the employer's handling, and many never realize there is a separate consumer reporting agency to dispute with. If your notice arrived through an ADP-branded portal, treat the screening arm as a CRA in its own right and dispute with it directly.

Verification failures and the "unable to verify" trap

The characteristic verification failure is a missing record rather than a false one: an employer that was acquired and no longer answers, a school that will not respond to a vendor, an out-of-date license database. The result comes back "unable to verify," and the employer reads it as evidence you lied. Unverifiable is not false. Send your own proof — W-2s, pay stubs, transcripts, a license printout — and require the verification to be completed.

Records that are not yours, and records that no longer exist

Two classic failures still dominate. First, identity mismatch: a common name, a shared date of birth, a partial Social Security number match, and a stranger's conviction lands on your report. Second, timing: a case that was expunged, sealed, dismissed or reduced is still reported because the vendor's copy of the court data was captured before the change and never refreshed. States have expanded automatic expungement faster than screening databases refresh, and that gap is where wrongly rejected applicants fall.

How an ADP screening error hurts you

Screening reports almost always arrive after a conditional offer — the worst moment for one to be wrong. You have already given notice, or turned down another offer. Then a single line, a felony belonging to a stranger or a suspension you never had, makes the offer disappear, usually by form letter that never identifies the line. In DOT-regulated and licensed roles the damage compounds: a bad screen follows you from one application to the next until the file is corrected.

ADP Screening and Selection Services' track record with regulators

What we did not find

We located no Federal Trade Commission action and no CFPB enforcement action or consent order against ADP Screening and Selection Services, Inc.; the entity does not appear in the CFPB's published enforcement database. Source. We did not run a fifty-state attorney general search, so treat that as unexamined rather than clean. What is confirmed is that the company appears on the CFPB's official list of consumer reporting companies — the regulator's own confirmation that it is FCRA-covered and owes you your file. Source.

A long run of federal FCRA lawsuits

The court record shows a persistent pattern of individual FCRA suits naming ADP Screening and Selection Services across many federal districts from 2008 to the present. Two were filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, the busiest FCRA venue in the country: Hines, Jr. v. ADP Screening and Selection Services, Inc., which also named the parent, and Harper, No. 3:20-cv-00370. Source. Others include Fifer and Rodriguez (N.D. Cal.), Jones (D. Colo.), Mogerman (S.D. Fla.), and Grijalva, No. 4:22-cv-00206 (D. Ariz.), appealed to the Ninth Circuit. Source. We publish no headline lawsuit count and no settlement figure: docket-search totals overstate the real number, and we found no verified class certification, judgment or settlement amount.

The driver's-record cases

Two cases under the Driver's Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721–2725, are why we treat driving-record errors as ADP's signature risk. In Taylor v. Acxiom Corp., ADP Screening and Selection Services was among many data companies sued over bulk acquisition of state driver's-license records; the Fifth Circuit affirmed dismissal, holding that states may distribute driver records in bulk for permissible purposes and that resellers may obtain and resell them without first using them for one. Source. To be straight: Taylor was a defense win for ADP, not a loss. Its value here is evidentiary — a published appellate opinion establishing that ADP's screening arm bought state driver records wholesale. A second DPPA case, Stallsworth v. ADP Screening and Selection Services, Inc., was filed in the Western District of Missouri. Source.

Why the CFPB complaint database will not tell you much here

There is no "ADP Screening and Selection Services" entry in the CFPB complaint database at all. Complaints against ADP-named entities classified as credit-reporting complaints number in the dozens, but those entities are dominated by ADP's payroll-card and deposit-account business, and "employment screening" does not exist as a sub-product. Source. Low or unreadable complaint numbers are not evidence of accuracy — they are evidence that the reporting structure hides the problem.

Your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

Four FCRA duties do most of the work in an ADP dispute. The company must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of what it reports (§1681e(b)). When you dispute, it must conduct a genuine reinvestigation rather than re-transmit whatever its source said the first time, and delete what it cannot verify (§1681i). When it reports public-record information for employment purposes, it must notify you at the time or keep strict procedures ensuring the information is complete and up to date (§1681k) — the provision reaching expunged and dismissed cases and charges reported without dispositions. And before an employer acts against you on the report, you must get a copy and a summary of your rights with a real chance to respond (§1681b(b)(3), pre-adverse action).

How to dispute an ADP background check

1. Ask the employer for the copy of the report and summary of rights required before any rejection, and ask in writing that the decision be held.
2. Request your full file from ADP at the Fort Collins Consumer Support address — the file, not just a recent report.
3. Identify every inaccuracy line by line and gather proof: certified court dispositions, an expungement order, your official state DMV abstract, W-2s, a license printout, and your ID.
4. Dispute in writing by certified mail, return receipt requested, enclosing copies rather than originals and keeping a dated record.
5. If ADP does not correct the report, or it already cost you the job, contact an FCRA attorney — deadlines apply and evidence gets harder to reconstruct.

This information is general and is not legal advice for your specific situation.

Did an inaccurate ADP background check cost you a job?

An employment background report is a consumer report under the FCRA, and ADP Screening and Selection Services must meet strict accuracy standards when it sells one about you. When the report is wrong and the mistake costs you a job or a commercial driving position, you may be entitled to money damages including lost wages. The case review is free and we take these cases nationwide — bring the report, the adverse-action letter, and any correspondence with ADP or the employer.

Admitted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; available to appear pro hac vice in other federal courts.

How The Kim Law Firm helps

The Kim Law Firm represents consumers in Fair Credit Reporting Act cases nationwide, and background-report accuracy is a core part of that work. We help people whose ADP report is inaccurate — a criminal record belonging to someone else, a case that was expunged or dismissed, a driving record that is not yours, a verification wrongly returned as unverifiable, or a mixed file built on the wrong Social Security number or date of birth.

To be direct about the limits: we do not help people trying to conceal accurate records. If the entry is correct, an FCRA claim is not the tool. If it is wrong, we pursue the correction and the damages, and you pay nothing unless we win.

Screening and verification arms inside payroll and HR companies

The company that runs your employer's payroll is often the same company selling background checks to your next employer, and the same company confirming your income to a lender. The arrangement is efficient and it obscures something important: these are separate legal entities with separate obligations, and a dispute addressed to the household name may never reach the subsidiary that actually produced the report. The entity that furnished it is the one required to reinvestigate.

• The Work Number — an employment and income database built from records employers supply directly.
• Experian Verify — a verification product operated under the name of a nationwide credit bureau.
• Truework — an independent verifier serving lenders, landlords and screening firms.
• EmpInfo — a California company handling verification requests on employers' behalf.
• Pinwheel — connecting to payroll platforms directly to return income and employment data.

Read the report for the exact corporate name and, if one is given, the state of incorporation. Address your dispute there, keep a copy, and do not assume that telling your employer solves it — the employer is a customer of the screening entity, not its supervisor. Where a payroll record is the source of the error, correcting it at the employer and disputing it at the reporting entity are two separate steps and both are necessary.

Screened by a different company? We also handle HireRight background check errors, Sterling background check errors, Checkr background check errors, and First Advantage background check errors — and you can start with our overview of the major background check companies.

Frequently asked questions

How do I dispute an ADP Screening and Selection Services background check?

Get the report from the employer or from ADP, identify each error, and dispute in writing to ADP Screening & Selection Services, Attn: Consumer Support, 2950 East Harmony Road, Suite 130, Fort Collins, CO 80528, with documents attached. Send it certified mail, return receipt requested, and keep copies.

Did ADP get out of the background-check business?

No. ADP's most recent annual report to the SEC still describes a background screening business subject to the FCRA, and the Colorado entity remains in good standing. The confusion comes from a wording change in the filings and the subsidiary dropping off ADP's list of significant subsidiaries — neither is a sale.

ADP says my check is still pending or "verifying" — can a delay violate the FCRA?

A delay alone is usually not a violation, but what happens during it can be. Once you dispute, the reinvestigation clock generally runs thirty days, and a reinvestigation that just repeats the original source is a problem under §1681i. If the employer is about to reject you, ask in writing that the decision be held and send ADP your documentation immediately.

My driving record on the ADP report is wrong. Is that an FCRA issue?

Yes. A motor vehicle report sold to an employer is a consumer report, and the accuracy requirement applies just as it does to criminal records. Order your official state DMV abstract, compare it line by line, and dispute with the abstract attached.

Can I sue ADP for a background check error?

Possibly. If ADP reported inaccurate information, failed to reinvestigate reasonably, or the adverse-action rules were ignored, and you were harmed, you may have a claim. We would need to see the report and the paperwork.

What if an ADP mistake already cost me the job?

That is the harm the FCRA addresses, and it usually makes a case stronger rather than too late. Keep the report, the adverse-action notice, every email, and any record of lost wages.

Is the case review really free?

Yes, with no obligation. We also handle claims against other screeners with overlapping product lines — see our pages on Pre-employ (JDP) and OPENonline if a different company's name is on your report.

Where we practice, and what to do if you are somewhere else

The Kim Law Firm is licensed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and that is where we handle matters directly.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is a federal statute. It applies the same way in every state, it is enforced in federal court, and the deadlines and remedies do not change when you cross a state line. So the answer to "does this apply to me in Ohio" is yes — but the answer to "can you represent me in Ohio" depends on the case and on where it would be filed.

If you are outside Pennsylvania and New Jersey, contact us anyway. Some matters can be handled from here. Some are better sent to a consumer lawyer admitted where you are, and we will tell you that plainly rather than let a deadline run while you wait. Either way you will get an answer, and the review costs nothing.

The one thing that does not wait is the clock. A claim under the Act generally must be brought within two years of the date you discover the violation, and in no event more than five years after the violation occurred. Finding out late does not extend the outside limit.