If a travel-nursing agency, a healthcare staffing firm, or a hospital system pulled a placement after a KarmaCheck background check, the report behind that decision is a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. KarmaCheck is built for healthcare staffing, where a credential or criminal-record error does not just cost one job — it can follow a nurse or technician from assignment to assignment. The law gives you the same rights here as against any screening company: see the report, dispute it free of charge, and be paid for what an error cost you.
What KarmaCheck is
KarmaCheck, Inc. is a San Francisco company founded in 2019 by LinkedIn co-founder Eric Ly, venture-backed and independent, according to its own announcements and business press covering its 2024 funding round. It announced Background Screening Credentialing Council accreditation in March 2024, and its FAQ explains that its background check “results in a consumer report as defined by the FCRA.” It sells county, state, and federal criminal searches, sex-offender and watch-list checks, driving records, drug testing, nursing-license and CPR-certification verification, exclusion screening against federal sanctions lists, employment and education verification, and occupational-health items such as titers and TB tests, and it markets to healthcare, industrial, call-center, and IT staffing agencies through integrations with staffing software such as Bullhorn. When it assembles those records and sells them to an agency or employer, it is a consumer reporting agency with every duty the FCRA imposes.
Where these reports go wrong
Staffing-grade screening runs fast and repeats often, and the errors repeat with it. A criminal search matched 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; an expunged record can surface from a stale database; a non-conviction older than seven years can appear even though the FCRA bars it. Healthcare adds its own failure modes: a nursing license reported as lapsed because a renewal had not posted, a certification marked unverified, or a name collision on a federal exclusion list, any of which can end a placement on the spot.
How to get your report and dispute it
KarmaCheck runs disputes by phone and email. According to its FAQ and candidate-support page, you can reply to the email that delivered your results, call (877) 732-2129 (weekdays, 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern), or write to support@karmacheck.com, and the company says a reinvestigation can take up to 30 days — the FCRA’s outer limit — during which the employer is told that a dispute is pending. Your completed report is available to download from the candidate dashboard at app.karmacheck.com, and the agency or employer that ordered it must give you a copy before acting on it. The company does not publish a dispute mailing address or form, so put the dispute in an email you keep, attach the court disposition or license record that proves your point, and save every reply; that record is what later shows the company had notice and kept reporting anyway. Our guide to disputing a background check covers what to 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. A stranger’s record on your report, a dismissed charge reported as a conviction, a license wrongly reported as lapsed, or a dispute that changes nothing is the exact failure the FCRA makes compensable: actual damages for the placement you lost, statutory and punitive damages where the violation is willful, and attorney’s fees, which is why we handle these cases on contingency. KarmaCheck sits alongside Cisive and its PreCheck healthcare unit, Certiphi, and the other companies in our background check company directory — and our background check error lawyer practice covers the rest, including when you can sue a background check company.
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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 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 September 2026.
