If an employer, a gig platform, or a landlord turned you down after a Certn background check, the report behind that decision is a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Certn is a Canadian company that screens for U.S. employers and property managers through a U.S. subsidiary, and it publishes less about how to dispute a report than most American screeners do. That does not reduce your rights. You are entitled to see the report, to dispute it free of charge, and to be compensated when an error costs you a job or a home.
What Certn is
Certn Holdings Inc. is headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, was founded in 2016, and operates in the United States through Certn (USA) Inc., according to its privacy policy and press coverage of its financing rounds; it markets U.S. criminal checks under the Certn Lime name and absorbed the U.K. screener Credence in 2024. Its U.S. product set covers Social Security number tracing, national criminal database and sex-offender searches, county and federal court searches, global sanctions and watch lists, identity verification, employment and education verification, credit checks, driving records, social-media screening, and continuous monitoring, sold to construction, financial services, gig, healthcare, hospitality, staffing, and property-management clients. Its applicant terms of use state that for U.S. residents it is a consumer reporting agency under the FCRA. The company does not appear on the Professional Background Screening Association’s list of accredited firms. When it assembles those records and sells them to a U.S. employer or landlord, it carries every duty the FCRA imposes.
Where these reports go wrong
A screener that runs national-database searches at volume fails in the ways databases fail. A match on name and date of birth can attach a stranger’s conviction to your file — the same failure that produces a mixed credit file; a charge that was dismissed can be reported as pending or as a conviction; an expunged record can surface from a database the court never updated; and a non-conviction older than seven years can appear even though the FCRA bars it. The company’s tenant-screening practices are also under a joint investigation by Canada’s federal and provincial privacy regulators, opened in 2024, that asks among other things whether the information it reports is accurate and current; whatever that investigation concludes, the accuracy standard that governs a U.S. report is the FCRA’s.
How to get your report and dispute it
Certn does not publish a dedicated U.S. dispute page, mailing address, or turnaround. According to its help center, if you believe any part of your report is inaccurate you should write to support@certn.co, and its applicant terms say disputes can also be raised inside the app; the privacy policy lists a toll-free line, 1-844-987-0690. Send the dispute by email so that it is dated and kept, identify the exact item, attach the court disposition or records that prove your point, and ask for written confirmation that a reinvestigation has been opened. The FCRA does not depend on the company publishing a deadline: it has 30 days to reinvestigate and must delete what it cannot verify. The employer or landlord that ordered the report must give you a copy before acting on it, and you can ask the company for your file directly. Our guide to disputing a background check covers what the letter should say.
When it becomes a legal claim
Consumer reporting agencies must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, reinvestigate disputes, and delete what they cannot verify, and a foreign parent does not change where a U.S. subsidiary can be sued. A stranger’s record on your report, a dismissed charge reported as a loss, or a dispute that goes unanswered is the exact failure the FCRA makes compensable: actual damages for the job or housing you lost, statutory and punitive damages where the violation is willful, and attorney’s fees, which is why we handle these cases on contingency. Certn sits alongside Checkr and Vetty among the newer screeners in our background check company directory, and its tenant reports fall under our tenant screening report errors practice; our background check error lawyer practice covers the employment side, including when you can sue a background check company.
Rated by the Clients We Represent
Richard Kim is rated 10.0 out of 10 on Avvo, with 35 client reviews averaging 5.0 out of 5 stars (as of August 2026) — read the reviews on Avvo. Admitted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; available to appear pro hac vice in other federal courts. You pay nothing unless we win.
Published by The Kim Law Firm, LLC — about attorney Richard Kim. Last updated August 2026.