Accurate Background Check Errors

You may never see an Accurate Background report until it's used to turn you down — and if it's wrong, that's exactly when the damage is done. Accurate Background is a large national screening company that supplies employers with criminal record searches, employment and education verification, drug testing, and driving records. A mistake in any one of those — a record that isn't yours, a mishandled drug screen, a driving-history mismatch — can quietly cost you a job. At The Kim Law Firm, we help people nationwide dispute these errors and hold the company accountable under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

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

What is Accurate Background?

Accurate Background is a national employment screening company that packages several kinds of checks into a single report — criminal history, employment and education verification, drug and health screening, and motor-vehicle records. That breadth matters: an error can come not just from a misfiled criminal record but from a mishandled drug-test result or a driving record matched to the wrong person, each of which can sink a hire on its own.

Common errors we see on Accurate Background reports

• A criminal record belonging to someone else attached to your name
• Drug-screening or motor-vehicle-record results reported inaccurately or matched to the wrong person
• Dismissed, sealed, or expunged cases shown as convictions
• Employment or education history verified incorrectly
• Outdated information reported beyond the FCRA's time limits
• Duplicate entries that make your history look worse than it is

How the error hurts you

Because these reports pull from several sources at once, a single wrong data point — a drug result, a driving record, a stray criminal entry — can be enough for an employer to move on. And since the rejection usually arrives with no explanation, most people never learn what the report actually said unless they think to ask for a copy.

Accurate Background's track record in the courts

Accurate Background has been sued — and has paid — over exactly the kind of error that costs people jobs.

In Stewart v. Accurate Background (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California), the company agreed to a $487,000 class-action settlement resolving claims that it reported criminal records — including cases that had been expunged, sealed, or dismissed — that should have been filtered out, without using all of the publicly available information needed to keep its reports accurate under the FCRA.

A settlement isn't an admission, but it reflects a real, documented dispute over the same accuracy failures we help people fight — and a company that has been made to answer for them before.

Your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

Even when you never see the report, the FCRA gives you leverage. If an employer relies on an Accurate Background report to deny you, it must provide a copy and a summary of your rights before the decision is final. You can dispute inaccuracies — including drug-screen or driving-record entries — directly with the company, which must reinvestigate within about 30 days and correct or delete anything it can't verify. Where the company reports false information or mishandles your dispute and you're harmed, you may recover actual damages, and for willful violations, statutory damages, punitive damages, and attorney's fees. Those recoverable fees are what let us represent you at no upfront cost.

How to dispute an Accurate Background screening error

1. Get the report copy and rights summary the employer must provide before acting on the screening.
2. Go through it by category — criminal entries, verifications, and any drug-screen or driving results — and collect documents that prove the truth.
3. Send Accurate Background a written dispute detailing each error, and retain copies.
4. Keep the roughly 30-day reinvestigation clock in view.
5. If the company won't correct the report — or you've already lost the opportunity — consult an FCRA attorney.

If your dispute didn't clear the error, that's often the point where the FCRA has been violated — and where we can help.

Did an inaccurate Accurate Background background check cost you a job?

Employment background reports are consumer reports under the FCRA, and Accurate Background has to follow strict accuracy rules. When a report is wrong, the consequences — a lost job offer — are serious, and so are your rights.

• Records that aren’t yours (mismatched identity). Someone else’s criminal record, or a case tied to identity theft, wrongly attributed to you are employment background check errors you can challenge — and can point to identity theft on your credit report.
• Outdated or expunged records. Reporting old, sealed, or dismissed information that should not appear violates the FCRA.
• Inaccurate credit or public-record data. Wrong financial or court information in the report overlaps with credit reporting errors.

Each is a potential FCRA violation that can require the report to be corrected and entitle you to damages — often at no cost to you.

How The Kim Law Firm helps

Our first focus is fixing the report and the harm it caused: if a Accurate Background background report cost you a job because of inaccurate, outdated, or mismatched information, we hold Accurate Background accountable under the FCRA and pursue damages. We help with employment background check errors, identity theft, and credit reporting errors.

We handle the hard part. Based in Philadelphia, we pull and analyze your Accurate Background report across every category it covers, identify each FCRA violation, engage the company and the employer where appropriate, and pursue the damages you're owed. With deep FCRA experience, we know how to force a correction — and you pay nothing unless we win.

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

Can a drug-screen or driving-record error on my report be disputed too?

Yes. Those entries are part of the consumer report and fall under the FCRA just like criminal records. If Accurate Background reported a drug or driving result inaccurately, you can dispute it, and the company must investigate and correct what it can't verify.

How do I dispute an Accurate Background report?

Get your report, go through it category by category, and file a written dispute with the company detailing each error, keeping copies. It generally has 30 days to investigate and must fix or delete unverifiable information.

Can I sue Accurate Background for an error?

Yes. If the company failed to follow reasonable procedures for accuracy, or didn't properly investigate your dispute, you may have an FCRA claim.

How long does the company have to investigate?

Generally about 30 days from the date you file your dispute.

What does a case review cost?

Nothing. The review is free, and because the FCRA shifts attorney's fees to the company that broke the law, you pay only if we recover for you.

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.