If a hotel, a casino, a hospital, a school, or another employer withdrew an offer after an S2Verify background check, the report behind that decision is a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. S2Verify is an Atlanta-area screener that has already been to federal court over what it reports, and the rules that case turned on are the same ones that protect you: the right to see the report, to dispute it free of charge, and to be compensated when an error costs you the job.
What S2Verify is
S2Verify, LLC was founded in 2009 and operates from Alpharetta, Georgia, with written correspondence going to a post office box in neighboring Roswell, according to its own site and press coverage of its accreditation; it announced Background Screening Credentialing Council accreditation in 2014 and in 2023 acquired Yale Background Screening of New York, so applicants screened under the Yale name may find S2Verify behind the report. It sells criminal-record searches, employment and education verification, driving histories, drug and occupational-health testing, I-9 processing, international checks, social-media screening, license and exclusion monitoring, and continuous screening, to employers in education, finance, food and beverage, gaming, healthcare, hospitality, nonprofits, oil and gas, and retail. A federal court described it in 2016 as “a consumer reporting agency that provides consumer reports to employers, landlords, and creditors,” and its own FAQ refers to itself as a CRA. When it assembles those records and sells them, it carries every duty the FCRA imposes.
Where these reports go wrong — including in court
The company’s best-known case shows the failure mode. In Hawkins v. S2Verify LLC, No. 3:15-cv-03502 (N.D. Cal.), the plaintiff alleged that his report listed criminal charges that had not resulted in convictions and were more than seven years old — records the FCRA bars a screening company from reporting for employment — and the court largely denied the company’s motion to dismiss in January 2016 and later certified a class. The same pattern produces the rest of the errors we see: a name-only match attaching a stranger’s record to your file, the failure behind a mixed credit file; a charge that was dismissed reported as pending or as a conviction; an expunged record pulled from a database the court never updated; and a verification call that went unanswered turned into “unable to verify.”
What the seven-year rule covers, and what it does not
The rule at issue in Hawkins is narrower than many applicants assume. A consumer reporting agency may not report civil suits, civil judgments and records of arrest that, from the date of entry, are more than seven years old, or older than the governing statute of limitations if that is longer; nor any other adverse item more than seven years old, except records of convictions of crimes (15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(2), (a)(5)). Two consequences follow. A conviction does not drop off an FCRA report by age alone. And the seven-year limits do not apply at all to a report for a job that pays, or may reasonably be expected to pay, $75,000 a year or more (§ 1681c(b)(3)). For a position paying less than that, the limits apply in full, and an arrest more than seven years old that never became a conviction should not appear on an S2Verify report.
How to get your report and dispute it
S2Verify runs a Consumer Compliance Center. According to its consumer pages, you can dispute by phone at 855-671-1933, by email at compliance@s2verify.com, through the online dispute form on its site, or in writing to P.O. Box 2597, Roswell, GA 30077, and the company says corrections are made no more than 30 days after it is contacted — the FCRA’s outer limit. A free copy of your own report is available by emailing the same address or calling the same number with your full legal name, current address, and the name of the company that ordered the report; do not put your Social Security number or date of birth in the email. Dispute in writing, attach the court disposition or records that prove your point, and keep every letter and reply; our guide to disputing a background check covers what the letter should say.
If the reinvestigation goes against you
A dispute that ends with the item “verified” does not end your options. You are entitled to written notice of the result within five business days of the reinvestigation’s completion, and to a description of the procedure the company used to check the item within 15 days of asking for it (15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(6)–(7)). That description can show whether anyone pulled the court file or the company simply re-ran a database search. If the reinvestigation does not resolve the dispute, you may file a brief statement setting out the nature of the dispute, which the company may limit to 100 words if it helps you write a clear summary (§ 1681i(b)). Unless it has reasonable grounds to believe the statement is frivolous or irrelevant, it must then note in every later report containing the item that you dispute it, and include your statement or a clear and accurate summary of it (§ 1681i(c)). Keep the result letter: a verification of a record that the court file contradicts is evidence for the claim described below.
When it becomes a legal claim
Consumer reporting agencies must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, must not report non-conviction records older than seven years, must reinvestigate disputes, and must delete what they cannot verify. A stale arrest on your report, a stranger’s conviction, a dismissed charge reported as a loss, or a dispute that changes nothing is the exact failure the FCRA makes compensable: actual damages for the job you lost, statutory and punitive damages where the violation is willful, and attorney’s fees, which is why we handle these cases on contingency. S2Verify sits alongside AccuSourceHR, Sterling, 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.
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 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.