Checkr runs the background checks behind the large rideshare and delivery platforms and a long list of employers that hire at volume (the Checkr page names them). When something on the report is wrong, the fix runs through a single button at the bottom of the report in Checkr’s candidate portal, a 30-day clock that the Fair Credit Reporting Act starts the day you press it, and — when the answer comes back “confirmed” — a set of rights that Checkr’s help pages do not describe. This is the whole route, in order.
First, is it a dispute at all?
Checkr separates two kinds of problem, and it matters which one you have.
If your personal information is wrong — name, date of birth, Social Security number, e-mail, phone, ZIP code — Checkr treats that as a correction, not a dispute, and says it may not be able to change some of it once screenings are running; in that case the employer has to order a new report with the right details. If the report is wrong because you mistyped your own date of birth on the application, that is the path.
If the record is wrong — a case that is not yours, a charge or a date reported incorrectly, a case whose status changed after Checkr pulled it, or an SSN-trace flag that says “data discrepancy” or “no data” when your information is correct — that is a dispute. Those are Checkr’s own examples, and they cover the errors I see most: someone else’s record matched to you on a name, a dismissed charge reported as if it were a conviction, an expunged or sealed record that should not have been reported at all, and a record older than the Act’s seven-year limit.
One more thing Checkr says plainly: a report with a “Clear” result cannot be disputed from the portal, and neither can a report that is still in progress or one more than twelve months old. If the report you need to challenge is older than that, or you cannot see it, the dispute goes by mail (below).
How to file the dispute
Log in to the Checkr candidate portal with the e-mail address the employer used for your check. Open the report, scroll to the bottom, and select File a dispute. Choose the items you are disputing from the options Checkr shows, write out why each is wrong, and attach your proof — PDF, JPG or PNG. Checkr sends a confirmation e-mail; you can reply to that e-mail with more documents if you did not have them at the start.
If the button is not there and none of the three exceptions above applies, Checkr’s instruction is to contact it, or to mail the dispute to Checkr, Inc., 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 2400, San Francisco, CA 94104 — the same address the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lists for Checkr’s consumer requests, along with the number (844) 824-3257 for requesting a copy of your report.
Send the evidence that decides it, not a paragraph of objection. For a record that is not yours: your full name with middle name and suffix, your date of birth, and, if you can get it, the court’s own docket for the other person showing different identifiers. For a dismissed or reduced charge: the docket entry or disposition order. For an expungement or sealing: the court’s order. For a case that is older than seven years: nothing more than the dates already on the report — the arithmetic is the evidence. Keep a copy of everything you upload and the confirmation e-mail with its date; the date is where the clock starts.
What Checkr has to do, and how long it has
Checkr’s own help center says it: while the dispute is open, Checkr pauses the adverse action process if the employer has started it, the report’s status changes to “Dispute,” the employer’s compliance contact is told, and no further action can be taken until the reinvestigation ends. That pause is the practical value of filing quickly — an employer that has sent a pre-adverse notice cannot finish the decision on a report that is under dispute.
The clock is the statute’s. A consumer reporting agency must complete its reinvestigation within 30 days of receiving the dispute, and the 30 days can stretch to 45 only if you send additional relevant information during that period. Checkr’s page says the same — 30 days, up to 45 “if documentation is provided to supplement the dispute.” When it finishes, Checkr must send you the written results within five business days, and it must delete or correct anything it cannot verify. If a deleted item is later put back, the company must first certify that the source verified it and tell you in writing within five business days — a reinsertion without that notice is its own violation. You are also entitled, on request, to a description of the method Checkr used to verify a disputed item, including the name and address of whoever it contacted.
Two outcomes come out of the process, in Checkr’s words: update — the report is corrected and both you and the employer are told what changed — or confirm — Checkr tells you and the employer that the original report is accurate and complete. The second one is where the real question begins.
When Checkr “confirms” a record that is wrong
A reinvestigation is not a second look at the same database. The Act requires a reasonable reinvestigation, and the Third Circuit — the federal appeals court for Pennsylvania and New Jersey — held nearly thirty years ago that a reporting agency cannot simply parrot the source that produced the error when the dispute gives it reason to look further; when the dispute points to the court file, the disposition or the sealing order, that is where the reinvestigation has to go. A “confirmed” result that repeats the original entry, on a dispute that enclosed the court’s own order, is the pattern behind most of the Checkr matters I see.
I have filed exactly that case. In a matter I filed in 2024 against Checkr, a Nevada job applicant’s reports carried a criminal record that the Clark County court had sealed and that was in any event more than seven years old; he disputed roughly six times, the record stayed each time, and two job offers were lost. The complaint’s point was simple: a look at the public court record, or at the dates already sitting in Checkr’s own file, would have kept it off. More examples are on the cases I have filed.
If your dispute came back confirmed, do three things before anything else. Ask Checkr, in writing, for its method of verification for the item. Ask the employer whether it has finished its decision, and remind it in writing that the report is disputed — an employer that acts on a report without first giving you a copy of it and a summary of your rights has its own problem under the Act, separate from Checkr’s. And request your full file from Checkr, not just the report the employer saw, so that you know every record the company has attached to you.
What the Act gives you
If Checkr reported a record that was inaccurate, or failed to reasonably reinvestigate when you disputed it, you have a claim against the screening company under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. For a negligent violation you recover your actual damages — the job you lost or started late, the offer you gave up, the weeks of searching, the distress of being treated as someone with a record you do not have — plus your attorney’s fees and costs. For a willful violation the Act adds statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 per violation and allows punitive damages. The employer answers separately if it withdrew the offer without the advance copy and summary of rights. Every figure with its section number is on Background Checks by the Numbers, and the general route for any screening company is on how to dispute a background check.
Keep the report, the dispute and its confirmation e-mail, everything you uploaded, Checkr’s answer, the court records, and the employer’s messages, including the one that withdrew the offer. That file is the case. I review it at no cost.
Admitted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; available to appear pro hac vice in other federal courts. You pay nothing unless we win.
Sources: Checkr Help Center, Something on my background check report is wrong. What should I do? and Candidate disputes (read September 22, 2026); Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Reporting Companies — Checkr (companies list, last modified January 30, 2025); 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681b(b)(3), 1681e(b), 1681g, 1681i(a)(1), (a)(5), (a)(6) and (a)(7), 1681j(b), 1681k, 1681n and 1681o (United States Code); Dandy v. Checkr, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-06631 (N.D. Cal., filed Sept. 20, 2024) (complaint); Cushman v. Trans Union Corp., 115 F.3d 220 (3d Cir. 1997).
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