Checkr Background Check Errors

If a Checkr background check got you deactivated or denied — and the report is wrong — your income shouldn't be collateral damage. Checkr is a technology-driven screening company that runs background checks for many of the gig-economy and on-demand platforms people depend on to earn — rideshare, delivery, and staffing apps — as well as traditional employers. Because those platforms often act on a report the moment it lands, a single Checkr mistake can shut off your ability to work across several of them at once. At The Kim Law Firm, we help gig workers and employees in every state dispute Checkr errors under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and recover what the mistake cost them.

What is Checkr?

Checkr is a modern, automation-heavy background check company built around speed. It runs criminal, driving, and identity checks for a wide range of employers, and it's the engine behind the screening on many gig and on-demand platforms. That speed is the problem when a report is wrong: platforms frequently deactivate or deny a worker the instant a flag appears — before anyone looks closely and before you get a chance to explain.

How to contact Checkr

To request your Checkr background report, dispute an error, or ask about a file Checkr maintains on you, you can reach them directly:

• Mailing address: Checkr, Inc., Attn: Consumer Disputes, One Montgomery Street, Suite 2400, San Francisco, CA 94104
• Phone: 1-844-824-3257
• Online: checkr.com

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Checkr must investigate a dispute you submit — free of charge — and correct or delete information it cannot verify. Keep copies of everything you send.

If you have an arrest or conviction record, Checkr operates a separate free service at betterfuture.com that gives you a limited-data copy of what it holds about you. That is in addition to the free file disclosure the FCRA already entitles you to.

Checkr in the news

Checkr, one of the largest background-screening companies serving gig-economy and hourly employers, has faced repeated Fair Credit Reporting Act class actions alleging that it misreported criminal records — including expunged, sealed, or dismissed cases, and records belonging to someone else — costing workers jobs with companies such as Uber and Lyft. Background-screening companies as a group have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to resolve FCRA claims. If a Checkr report cost you a job because of inaccurate or outdated information, the FCRA gives you the right to dispute it and to seek damages. Sources: Class action over misreported records and CBS News.

Common Checkr errors we see

• A criminal record that isn't yours, matched to you by name or date of birth
• Records that should have been filtered out — dismissed, sealed, expunged, or too old to report
• Driving-history or identity mismatches that flag you on a rideshare or delivery platform
• A charge reported as a conviction, or the same case shown twice
• An automatic deactivation or denial triggered before you could respond
• A report left “pending” that keeps you from earning while it sits

How many people are complaining about Checkr

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau keeps a public record of complaints filed against consumer reporting agencies. Complaints about Checkr have risen sharply: 153 in 2023, 187 in 2024, and 469 in 2025 — roughly three times the 2023 figure in two years.

For comparison, over the same period complaints about Sterling Infosystems went from 50 to 77 and complaints about First Advantage rose about a third. Checkr is the newest of the large screening companies and, by revenue, not the largest. It now draws more complaints than any of them.

A complaint to the CFPB is not a lawsuit and it does not get you damages. But if your Checkr report was wrong and the dispute went nowhere, the database says plainly that you are not an isolated case, and the trend says the problem is getting worse rather than better.

How a Checkr error hurts you

For gig and on-demand workers, a Checkr error isn't an abstract paperwork problem — it can cut off your paycheck overnight by getting you deactivated from the apps you drive or deliver for, sometimes from several at once. For traditional employees, it can kill a job before you're ever interviewed. And because the decision is often automated and instant, the harm usually lands before you even know what the report said.

Checkr's track record in the courts

Checkr has been sued repeatedly under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The cases below are a matter of public record. Some settled and several are still pending — an allegation in a filed complaint is not a finding of wrongdoing. Together they show the pattern that keeps recurring: a criminal record or driving record attached to the wrong person, and a dispute process that did not fix it.

Twumasi-Ankrah v. Checkr, Inc., No. 19-3771 (6th Cir. 2020). This is the most important of them. Checkr reported motor vehicle accidents to Uber without noting that the state bureau logs every accident regardless of who was at fault. When the driver sent documentation showing he was not responsible, Checkr did not revisit the report. The district court threw the case out. The Sixth Circuit reversed and sent it back, holding that a report can violate the FCRA's accuracy requirement by being misleading even where each individual fact in it is technically true. If a Checkr report told an employer something true in a way that was certain to be read wrongly, that case is the reason you may still have a claim.

Howell v. Checkr, Inc., No. 3:17-cv-04305 (N.D. Cal.). A nationwide FCRA class action filed in Checkr's home district in July 2017. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim granted preliminary approval of a class settlement in 2018.

Golightly v. Uber Technologies, Inc. and Checkr, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-03005 (S.D.N.Y., filed 2021). A proposed class action alleging that Checkr furnished background reports to Uber without first obtaining the certification the FCRA requires from anyone who orders a report for employment purposes — 15 U.S.C. section 1681b(b)(1)(A).

Davis v. Checkr, Inc., No. 0:26-cv-60088 (S.D. Fla., filed 2026). The plaintiff alleges Checkr put another person's criminal case records on her report, and that the company “knowingly and willfully maintains deficient procedures” because including more data is more profitable than including only the data that actually belongs to the consumer.

Barone v. YAZAM, Inc. and Checkr, Inc., No. 4:26-cv-00817 (E.D. Tex., filed July 2026). A Fair Credit Reporting Act claim filed this year. Still pending.

A word on what these cases do and do not mean for you. None of them decides your case, and a background check that is unflattering but correct is not an FCRA claim — the statute gives you a remedy when a report is wrong or misleading about you, not when it is accurate and you wish it were not. What the pattern above shows is where Checkr has repeatedly been alleged to fall down: identity matching, and what happens after you dispute.

How to sue Checkr for a background check error

You do not sue Checkr because a background check came back badly. You sue Checkr because the report was wrong, or because Checkr broke one of the specific rules the Fair Credit Reporting Act imposes on companies that sell reports about you.

In practice there are two routes, and most cases run on the first.

The report was inaccurate and Checkr's procedures were not reasonable. Section 1681e(b) of the FCRA requires a screening company to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy. Someone else's conviction on your report is the classic version. So is a charge that was dismissed, expunged or sealed and reported anyway, a case reported twice so it looks like two offenses, and a record that is accurate about someone with your name but is not about you.

You disputed it and Checkr did not fix it. Section 1681i requires a reinvestigation, generally within 30 days. A dispute that gets closed with the record unchanged, or that produces a form letter and nothing else, is a separate violation from the original error — and it is usually the stronger claim, because it is the point where the company knew.

What you can recover. If the violation was negligent, you can recover your actual damages — most commonly the wages from the job you did not get — plus attorney's fees and costs. If it was willful, which is where a mishandled dispute matters, the FCRA allows actual damages or statutory damages of $100 to $1,000, plus punitive damages, plus fees and costs. In Williams v. First Advantage, a mixed-file case against a different screening company, the Eleventh Circuit upheld $250,000 in compensatory damages and allowed a $1 million punitive award to stand.

The clock. You generally have two years from the date you discovered the violation, and no more than five years from the violation itself. If a Checkr report cost you a job, the two-year clock is already running.

What it costs you. Nothing up front. We take FCRA cases on contingency, and the statute makes the defendant pay the attorney's fees when we win.

The first step is not the lawsuit. It is getting your file and disputing it in writing, because that is what creates the record. The section below on how to dispute a Checkr background check sets out how to do that.

Your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

Checkr and the platforms that use it still have to follow the FCRA — even when the decision is automated. Before a platform or employer acts against you based on a Checkr report, you're entitled to a copy and a summary of your rights. You can dispute the error with Checkr, which must reinvestigate (generally within 30 days) and correct or delete what it can't verify. If Checkr reports something false or ignores your dispute and it costs you work, the FCRA lets you recover actual damages — including lost income — and, for willful violations, statutory and punitive damages plus attorney's fees. That fee-shifting is why we take these cases with no upfront cost.

How to dispute a Checkr background check

1. Pull your Checkr report through its candidate portal and get the summary of rights the platform or employer must provide.
2. Identify what's wrong — a record that isn't yours, one that should have been filtered out, or an outdated entry — and gather proof.
3. File your dispute directly with Checkr and keep copies; move quickly, because a wrongful deactivation costs you more with every day it stands.
4. Track the 30-day investigation window.
5. If Checkr won't fix it — or you've already been deactivated or denied — talk to an FCRA attorney about recovering your losses.

If your Checkr dispute didn't undo the error, that's often where the FCRA violation is — and where we can step in.

Did an inaccurate Checkr background check cost you a job?

Employment background reports are consumer reports under the FCRA, and Checkr 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 Checkr background report cost you a job because of inaccurate, outdated, or mismatched information, we hold Checkr accountable under the FCRA and pursue damages. We help with employment background check errors, identity theft, and credit reporting errors.

A wrongful deactivation can't wait, and neither do we. From our Philadelphia office, we dig into your Checkr report, pinpoint the FCRA violations, push Checkr and the platform to correct the record, and pursue compensation — including the income you lost while you couldn't work. Our FCRA experience is extensive, and you pay nothing unless we win.

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

Who does Uber use for background checks, and the other employers that name Checkr

Most people arrive at a Checkr report without ever having heard of Checkr. An app deactivates an account, an offer is withdrawn, or an email arrives from a company the applicant never applied to, and the first question is not how to dispute anything. It is who this company is and why it has a file. The answer usually starts with the employer, so this section is organized the way the question is actually asked.

Every employer relationship named below is one the employer or Checkr itself has published. We do not repeat vendor relationships sourced from job boards, message boards or business-to-business data brokers, for the same reason we do not repeat unverified phone numbers.

Who does Uber use for background checks?

Uber's own driver help material states that background checks are performed by Checkr, which it describes as Uber's third-party background check provider. That is Uber saying it about itself, which is as good as a source gets. Checkr separately lists Uber among the companies named on its customers page.

One caution worth stating plainly, because it comes up. First Advantage also lists Uber among the customers named on its own customer testimonials material. Both statements are published by the companies themselves, and they are not necessarily in conflict — a platform that operates in many countries and hires for more than one kind of role can use more than one screening vendor. Nothing on this page asserts that either company is Uber's exclusive screener. If you need to know which company produced your report, the report and the adverse action notice settle it, not any website.

Who does Lyft use for background checks?

Checkr names Lyft on its customers page and publishes a Lyft customer story. Lyft appears among the platform companies Checkr identifies publicly as customers.

Who does DoorDash use for background checks?

Checkr names DoorDash on its customers page. The same page names Instacart, Grubhub, Shipt, Roadie, Thumbtack, GigSmart, Angi and HONK Technologies — the on-demand and gig platforms as a group are the single largest concentration of Checkr customers Checkr itself identifies.

This matters for a specific reason. Gig platforms re-run background checks periodically rather than only at onboarding, so a Checkr report can end an income stream years after a person started driving or delivering. A record that surfaces on a re-screen is not new information about the applicant. It is frequently the same old information, reported differently.

Which employers outside the gig platforms name Checkr?

Checkr publishes a broader customer list and a set of named case studies. The companies it identifies include:

• Food and hospitality: Domino's, Subway, Papa John's, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, CMC Hotels.
• Retail and consumer brands: Ace Hardware, Stitch Fix, Hot Topic, Orangetheory, Curology, Dermalogica, Brilliant Earth, Purple Innovation.
• Technology and financial services: Coinbase, Verkada, OpenAI, Patreon, Podium, Carta.
• Staffing, field services and home services: Field Nation, PrideStaff, HireArt, HelloTech, Veryable, BlueCrew, Wonolo, eTech, Adventure Nannies, Nurse Dash.
• Non-profit and community organizations: Khan Academy, Hungry Harvest, Tim Horton's Foundation Camps, Rock Point Church, Boys & Girls Club of San Leandro.

Two of those entries deserve precision rather than convenience. CMC Hotels is a hotel operating company, not the hotel brands whose flags appear on its properties, and a franchisee's screening vendor is not necessarily the brand's. Tim Horton's Foundation Camps is a charitable foundation rather than the restaurant chain, and Boys & Girls Club of San Leandro is a local organization rather than the national body. Copying those names loosely is how an employer list stops being accurate, and an inaccurate list is worse than none.

Screening contracts change, so treat any list like this as dated

Everything above reflects material published by Checkr or by the employer as of the date this page was updated. Screening contracts are re-bid, companies switch vendors, and a relationship that was real last year may not be real now. A published customer list is also marketing, which means it shows who a company wants to be associated with rather than a complete or current roster.

So this list will tell you who plausibly ran your report. It will not tell you who did. For that there is a document.

How to tell which company actually screened you

This is the part almost nobody explains, and it is the one that matters most.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, an employer that takes adverse action against you — withdrawing an offer, ending an engagement, deactivating an account — based in whole or in part on a consumer report must give you notice, and that notice must identify the consumer reporting agency that supplied the report. The employer must also give you the agency's contact details and tell you that the agency did not make the decision.

That notice is the authoritative answer to who screened you. It outranks this page, the vendor's marketing, and anything anyone posts in a forum. Before the adverse action becomes final you are also entitled to a copy of the report itself and a summary of your rights, which is what the pre-adverse action notice is for.

• Read the notice, not the rumour. The agency named in it is the agency that holds your file.
• Ask for the report if you were not sent one. A pre-adverse action notice that arrives without the report is itself a problem.
• Check your email spam folder and the app's message center. Gig platforms frequently deliver these notices in-app rather than by post.
• Request your file directly from the agency. You are entitled to a copy of the file a consumer reporting agency holds on you.

The phone number, address and portal Checkr publishes

• Consumer telephone number: 844-824-3257, also written 1-844-824-3257, (844) 824-3257 or 8448243257. This is the number the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lists for Checkr in its published list of consumer reporting companies.
• Mailing address: Checkr, Inc., Attn: Consumer Disputes, One Montgomery Street, Suite 2400, San Francisco, CA 94104. Checkr's own privacy policy gives the same street address for privacy questions, addressed to Attn: Privacy Questions.
• Email published in the privacy policy: hello@checkr.com, which Checkr identifies for privacy questions and rights requests.
• Candidate portal: candidate.checkr.com, which is where a copy of a report is requested and where a dispute is normally started.

Checkr's own consumer-facing legal pages publish an email address and a mailing address but no telephone number. The number above comes from the federal regulator's published list rather than from Checkr's website, and it is offered on that basis. Where a company and a regulator publish the same address, as they do here, that agreement is worth more than either source alone.

Numbers and addresses that are not on this list

Screening companies and the employers that use them send notices from automated systems, and a legitimate message about a Checkr report can arrive from a number or an email domain that appears nowhere in Checkr's published material. An unlisted number is not proof of a scam, and a number that matches this list is not proof the caller is genuine — caller ID is trivially spoofed.

Numbers circulating on directory sites and complaint forums as Checkr dispute or support lines are not listed here. Where a number is published nowhere official we do not assert it, because search volume on a phone number is evidence that people are receiving calls from it — not evidence that it belongs to the company those callers name. The same discipline applies to employer relationships: business-to-business databases that infer a company's vendors from website tracking are not sources, and no name on this page came from one.

There is a different problem worth separating out. If a Checkr report shows a criminal record, an employment history or an address that is not yours, the question is not which employer ordered it — it is that your file may be mixed with someone else's, or that someone used your identifying information. A consumer report may be obtained only for a permissible purpose, and a report pulled on you by a company you never applied to is itself a problem under the statute, separate from whatever the report says.

To check what you are actually looking at:

• Find the adverse action or pre-adverse action notice and read which consumer reporting agency it names.
• Request your file from that agency directly, in writing, and keep the request.
• Compare every name, date of birth, address and Social Security number fragment on the report against your own records. Mixed files usually announce themselves in the identifiers, not in the offenses.
• Check whether the record has been expunged, sealed, dismissed or reported past the period the statute allows.
• Dispute in writing with the agency named on the notice, and keep the letters, the responses and the envelopes. The paper trail is what establishes what the agency knew and when.

A background report that costs you a job because it describes someone else, or because it reports a record the law does not permit it to report, is a Fair Credit Reporting Act problem, and the statute provides rights against both the screening company and the employer that acted on it.

Frequently asked questions

Checkr deactivated me from a gig app over a background check — what can I do?

Pull your Checkr report, document what's wrong, and dispute it directly with Checkr through its portal. Checkr generally has 30 days to investigate and must fix or delete what it can't verify. If a mistake cost you your ability to work, an FCRA attorney can help you seek compensation, including for lost income.

Can I recover the income I lost while I was deactivated?

Possibly. If a Checkr error caused a wrongful deactivation, lost earnings can be part of the actual damages the FCRA allows — along with statutory and punitive damages for willful violations. It's worth a review.

How do I dispute a Checkr background check?

File a written dispute directly with Checkr through its candidate portal, attach documents showing the correct information, and keep copies. Checkr must investigate — generally within 30 days.

Can I sue Checkr for a background check error?

Yes. If Checkr fails to follow reasonable procedures for accuracy, or ignores a valid dispute, you may have a claim under the FCRA.

Is the case review free?

Yes — free review, and no fee unless we recover for you.

Who does Uber use for background checks?

Uber's own driver help material states that its background checks are performed by Checkr, which it describes as its third-party background check provider. Checkr separately names Uber on its published customers page. First Advantage also names Uber in its own customer material, and nothing here asserts that either company is Uber's exclusive screener. The report you were shown, and the adverse action notice that accompanies it, name the agency that actually produced your file.

Who does Lyft use for background checks?

Checkr names Lyft on its published customers page and publishes a Lyft customer story. That is the screening company naming the platform in its own material. Screening contracts are re-bid periodically, so treat any published relationship as accurate on the date it was published rather than permanent.

Who does DoorDash use for background checks?

Checkr names DoorDash on its published customers page, along with Instacart, Grubhub, Shipt, Roadie, Thumbtack, GigSmart, Angi and HONK Technologies. Gig platforms are the single largest concentration of customers Checkr identifies publicly. They also re-run screening periodically rather than only at onboarding, which is why a report can end an income stream years after a person started driving or delivering.

What is the Checkr phone number for consumers?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lists 844-824-3257 for Checkr in its published list of consumer reporting companies. The same number is also written 1-844-824-3257, (844) 824-3257 or 8448243257. Checkr's own consumer-facing legal pages publish an email address and a mailing address but no telephone number, so the number above comes from the federal regulator's list rather than from Checkr's website.

What address does Checkr use for consumer disputes?

Checkr, Inc., Attn: Consumer Disputes, One Montgomery Street, Suite 2400, San Francisco, CA 94104. Checkr's own privacy policy gives the same street address for privacy questions, addressed to Attn: Privacy Questions. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's published list records the same address.

How do I get a copy of my Checkr background report?

Checkr's candidate portal at candidate.checkr.com is where a copy of a report is requested and where a dispute is normally started. Separately, if an employer took adverse action against you based on the report, you are entitled to a copy of the report and a summary of your rights before that action becomes final. That entitlement is what a pre-adverse action notice exists to deliver.

How do I find out which company ran my background check?

Read the adverse action notice. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, an employer that takes adverse action based in whole or in part on a consumer report must give you notice identifying the consumer reporting agency that supplied the report, provide the agency's contact details, and tell you the agency did not make the decision. That notice outranks any website, any vendor's marketing and anything posted in a forum.

My Checkr report shows a record that is not mine. What does that mean?

It usually means one of two things. Your file may be mixed with another person's, which typically announces itself in the identifiers — name, date of birth, address history, Social Security number fragment — rather than in the offenses. Or someone used your identifying information. Either is a Fair Credit Reporting Act problem, and the statute provides rights against both the screening company and the employer that acted on the 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.