If an employer, a university, or a staffing agency put your hiring on hold after a Justifacts background check, the report they are looking at is a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Justifacts is a regional, family-run company rather than a national giant, but the law does not scale with company size: you are entitled to see the report, to a free reinvestigation of anything you dispute, and to compensation when an error costs you the job.
What Justifacts is
Justifacts Credential Verification, Inc. operates from Murrysville, Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh, and has been in business since 1982 according to both its own company history and its Better Business Bureau profile. It sells county, state, federal, and national criminal searches, sex-offender checks, identity and address-history tracing, driving records and MVR monitoring, credit reports, employment, education, reference, and professional-license verification, drug and medical screening, and ongoing criminal monitoring. Its client base is heavy on colleges and universities, healthcare, manufacturing, staffing, and hospitality; Pennsylvania universities use it for the state criminal and child-abuse clearances that campus jobs require. Its dispute page explains that it reinvestigates disputed information “to comply with our obligations as set forth by the Fair Credit Reporting Act,” and the company reports that it has held PBSA accreditation since 2014. When it assembles those records and sells them to an employer, it is a consumer reporting agency with every duty the FCRA imposes.
Where these reports go wrong
A company that runs county courthouse searches and verification calls by hand is exposed to human error at every step. A record matched on name alone can attach a stranger’s conviction to your file; a summary offense or traffic matter can be graded as a misdemeanor; a charge that was dismissed or withdrawn can be reported as if it were still open; and an expunged record can be pulled from a database that never caught up with the court. On the verification side, a former employer that will not return a call becomes “unable to verify,” and a degree recorded under a maiden name becomes “no record found” — both of which read to a hiring manager as if you lied on the application.
What has to happen before an employer acts on a Justifacts report
A hold on your hiring is not yet a decision. Before an employer takes adverse action based in whole or in part on a background report — rescinding an offer, ending a placement, refusing a campus position — the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires it to give you a copy of the report and a written description of your rights under the Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681b(b)(3)(A)). The Federal Trade Commission’s guidance to employers describes the same two documents. That letter is when to compare the report with the court docket and your own records and send a dispute, while the decision can still change.
If the employer goes ahead, it must send a second notice naming the company that supplied the report, with its address and telephone number, stating that the company did not make the decision, and telling you that you can get a free copy of the report if you ask within 60 days and can dispute what is in it (15 U.S.C. § 1681m(a)). The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s summary of rights says the same: your file disclosure is free if a person has taken adverse action against you because of information in your report.
The notice owed when public records are reported for a job
Courthouse searches are most of what Justifacts sells, and the Act puts a specific duty on that work. A consumer reporting agency that reports public-record information for employment that is likely to hurt your chances of getting the job must either notify you at the time, with the name and address of the employer receiving it, or maintain strict procedures designed to ensure the record is complete and up to date (15 U.S.C. § 1681k(a)). The FTC’s guidance to background screening companies describes the same either-or. A case reported without the withdrawal or dismissal that ended it is the incomplete record that duty is meant to prevent.
How to get your report and dispute it
Justifacts publishes a direct dispute channel. According to its applicant-disputes page, disputes go to its Compliance Department at 5250 Logan Ferry Road, Murrysville, PA 15668, by phone at (800) 356-6885 (weekdays, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern), or by fax at (412) 798-4799, using its Applicant Dispute Form with a copy of your photo ID; the same address and phone appear on its BBB profile. The company says disputes are normally completed within 30 days — the FCRA’s outer limit — and its FAQ says most are resolved in three to five business days. You can request your file with the records-request form the company posts, and it is free if an employer took adverse action based on it and you ask within 60 days; the employer that ordered the report must give you a copy before taking adverse action. Dispute in writing, attach the court disposition, transcript, or pay records that prove your point, and keep every letter; 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 and must correct what they cannot verify. A stranger’s record on your report, a dismissed charge reported as a conviction, or a dispute that changes nothing is the exact failure the FCRA makes compensable: actual damages for the position you lost, statutory and punitive damages where the violation is willful, and attorney’s fees, which is why we handle these cases on contingency. Pennsylvania is our home court, and Justifacts is a Pennsylvania company. It sits alongside Truescreen, Certiphi, and the other companies in our background check company directory — and our background check error lawyer practice covers the rest, from when you can sue a screening company to what a rescinded job offer is worth.
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Richard Kim is rated 10.0 out of 10 on Avvo, with 35 client reviews averaging 5.0 out of 5 stars (as of September 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 October 2026.