Sterling Background Check Errors

When a Sterling background check stands between you and a job, and the report is wrong, the fix isn't always simple — because Sterling screens for so many large employers that one bad record can follow you from application to application. Sterling (Sterling Check Corp) is among the biggest enterprise screening companies in the country, running criminal, employment, education, and identity checks for major employers. At The Kim Law Firm, we help people across the country dispute Sterling errors and hold the company to the accuracy standards the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) demands.

What is Sterling?

Sterling is a large, enterprise-focused screening company whose reports are relied on by some of the country's biggest employers. Because Sterling sits behind the hiring process at so many large organizations, a single inaccuracy — especially a mixed file that confuses you with someone else — doesn't just cost you one job. It can quietly resurface every time another Sterling-using employer runs your name.

How to contact Sterling

To request your Sterling (SterlingCheck) background report or dispute an error, you can reach them directly:

• Corporate headquarters: Sterling, 6150 Oak Tree Boulevard, Suite 490, Independence, OH 44131
• Disputes: submit online at mybackgroundcheck.sterlingcheck.com
• Phone: 1-800-899-2272
• Online: sterlingcheck.com

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

Use the right number for a dispute. The number above is Sterling’s general inquiries line. The consumer disputes number published in the CFPB’s own directory of consumer reporting companies is (888) 889-5248, and Sterling separately publishes 855-747-9783 for screening support. None of the three are the same. If you are disputing a report, use the CFPB number and put the dispute in writing to the Independence, Ohio address above.

Sterling’s FACT Act disclosure page at sterlingcheck.com/about-sterling/fact-act-disclosure/ describes your right to one free copy of your report every twelve months.

Common Sterling errors we see

• Another person's criminal history merged into your file — a “mixed file,” which is especially damaging when Sterling screens for many large employers
• Cases that were dismissed, sealed, or expunged reported as convictions
• Outdated records that should have aged off under the FCRA
• Identity or verification details Sterling matched to the wrong person
• One offense duplicated so your record looks worse than it is
• The same inaccurate information blocking you across multiple employers who all use Sterling

How many people are complaining about Sterling

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau keeps a public record of complaints filed against consumer reporting agencies. Complaints about Sterling Infosystems ran 50 in 2023, 80 in 2024, and 77 in 2025. There is no surge in that, and it would be misleading to suggest one. The figure is steady.

What it establishes is scale. Dozens of people a year take the trouble to file a formal complaint with a federal regulator about a Sterling report, and each of those is someone who had already tried the ordinary dispute route. A complaint to the CFPB is not a lawsuit and it does not get you damages, but if your report was wrong and the dispute went nowhere, you are not an isolated case.

How a Sterling error hurts you

Because Sterling's reach is so wide, a mistake on its report can do outsized damage: you clear one hurdle only to be tripped by the same wrong record at the next employer, with no idea why the offers keep evaporating. On top of the lost roles comes lost income and the strain of being judged, again and again, for something that isn't true.

Lawsuits and enforcement actions against Sterling

Sterling’s accuracy failures have drawn both a federal regulator and repeated class actions — a pattern that informs how seriously we take a wrong Sterling report. Four matters are set out below.

CFPB v. Sterling Infosystems, Inc., No. 1:19-cv-10824 (S.D.N.Y. 2019) — $6 million to consumers and a $2.5 million penalty, $8.5 million in all. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Sterling in federal court and obtained a judgment in November 2019. The Bureau alleged that Sterling failed to employ reasonable procedures to ensure the maximum possible accuracy of the information in its background reports, failed to maintain procedures to keep public-record information complete and up to date or to notify consumers when it was being reported, and reported criminal history and other adverse information outside the time window the FCRA allows.

Gambles v. Sterling Infosystems, Inc., No. 1:15-cv-09746, and Merck v. Sterling Infosystems-Ohio, Inc., No. 1:17-cv-02033 (S.D.N.Y.) — $15 million. These consolidated class actions alleged that Sterling attached a “high risk indicator” to consumers on the strength of addresses they had not lived at for seven years or more — including flagging people as high-risk because an address years in their past was associated with a hotel or motel, when many of the buildings in question were ordinary apartment complexes.

Grissom v. Sterling Infosystems, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-07948 (S.D.N.Y.). Judge Vernon S. Broderick approved this settlement in May 2025. The claim was that Sterling matched records to consumers using a name developed from a Social Security number trace, and reported them even where the first name, last name and middle name or initial did not exactly match. The settlement covered conduct from September 2018 through June 2021 and included both a damages class and an injunctive-relief class — meaning Sterling agreed to change the practice, not only to pay for it.

Ridenour v. Multi-Color Corp. and Sterling Infosystems, Inc., No. 2:15-cv-00041 (E.D. Va.) — $5.9 million. A class of approximately 36,000 consumers. The allegations were that Sterling did not obtain complete criminal and traffic records before selling employment reports, and did not give consumers a copy of the report or a summary of their FCRA rights before an employer acted on it. The lead plaintiff’s report reflected an unverifiable conviction that was in fact an eighteen-year-old misdemeanor traffic offense.

Four matters, roughly $29 million in penalties and class relief, and in the most recent one an agreement to change the matching practice itself.

How to sue Sterling for a background check error

You do not sue Sterling because a background check came back badly. You sue Sterling because the report was wrong, or because Sterling 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 Sterling'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 Sterling 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 Sterling 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 Sterling background check sets out how to do that.

Your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

The FCRA requires Sterling to follow reasonable procedures to keep its reports accurate — a duty it too often falls short of. If you find a mistake, you can dispute it directly with Sterling, which must investigate within roughly 30 days and remove or fix anything it cannot verify. Your employer has obligations too: it cannot quietly reject you over a Sterling report without first giving you a copy and a chance to respond. When those rules are broken and it costs you, the law allows recovery of actual damages, plus statutory damages, punitive damages, and attorney's fees for willful violations. Because the wrongdoer pays those fees, our representation costs you nothing up front.

How to dispute a Sterling background check

1. Request the report copy and rights summary from the employer that ran the Sterling check.
2. Compare every entry against your own records, and flag anything that isn't yours, is out of date, or was resolved in your favor.
3. Dispute the errors in writing with Sterling, attach your documentation, and save copies.
4. Hold Sterling to the roughly 30-day investigation deadline.
5. If Sterling won't correct the record — or it already cost you the role — talk to an FCRA attorney.

If Sterling's investigation left the error in place, that's frequently where the FCRA violation lies — and where we can help.

Sterling is now First Advantage — and that matters for your dispute

If your report came from Sterling, it may now be First Advantage’s to answer for. On 31 October 2024, First Advantage completed a $2.2 billion acquisition of Sterling Check, and Sterling’s own website carries the banner “Sterling is now First Advantage! New name. Same expert insight,” together with the statement that Sterling is now a First Advantage company.

The consumer-facing systems have not merged, and the gap is where people get stuck.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s directory of consumer reporting companies still lists Sterling as a separate company, with its own dispute phone number and its own mailing address, and does not mention First Advantage in the entry at all. Sterling’s own site publishes 855-747-9783 and 800-899-2272. The CFPB publishes (888) 889-5248 for the same company. None of the three match. So a candidate screened by “Sterling,” then told the report came from “First Advantage,” can call three different numbers for one company and be told three different things about whose file it is.

If you are not certain which name your report was run under, dispute to both. Send a written dispute, with copies of your identification and any documents that prove the error, to:

Sterling — Attn: Consumer Reports, 6150 Oak Tree Boulevard, Suite 490, Independence, OH 44131

First Advantage — Consumer Center, P.O. Box 105292, Atlanta, GA 30348-5292

Send both by certified mail and keep the receipts. Under the FCRA a written dispute starts a clock the company has to answer, and a certified-mail receipt is the cheapest proof you will ever buy that the clock started. Being routed between two brand names for one company is not your problem to solve, and it is not a defense to a report that was wrong.

Did an inaccurate Sterling background check cost you a job?

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

You don't have to take on a company Sterling's size alone. Working from Philadelphia, we review your Sterling report, document the FCRA violations, deal directly with Sterling and the employer where appropriate, and seek damages for what the error cost you. We've built extensive experience holding large screening companies to the law's accuracy standards — and there's no fee unless we recover for you.

Screened by a different company? We also handle HireRight background check errors, Checkr 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.

Sterling phone number, the Independence, Ohio address and what the First Advantage acquisition changed

Sterling is one of the largest background screening companies in the United States, and it is no longer an independent one. That change matters to anyone trying to reach it, because the address most consumers find online is a former head office, and because the entity named on your paperwork may not be the entity you expect. Everything below is published by Sterling itself, by First Advantage, or by a federal regulator, and the source is named in the sentence.

The address to use now

• Consumer and candidate mailing address: Sterling, 6150 Oak Tree Boulevard, Suite 490, Independence, OH 44131.

This is the address Sterling's own candidate portal publishes, and it is the address the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau records for Sterling in its published list of consumer reporting companies. Where a company and a federal regulator publish the same address, that agreement is worth more than either source alone.

An older New York address at 1 State Street Plaza circulates widely and appears on a great many third-party pages. That was a former head office. Send a dispute or a file request to Independence, Ohio.

The numbers Sterling publishes

• Candidate customer service: 888-889-5248, also written 1-888-889-5248, (888) 889-5248 or 8888895248. Sterling publishes hours of Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lists the same number.
• Global headquarters line: 1-800-899-2272, also written 800-899-2272, (800) 899-2272 or 8008992272.
• Identity verification support: 844-989-0884, for candidates working through the ID.me identity verification step.
• Human trafficking inquiries: 844-468-6522.

Use the candidate line for anything about your own report. The headquarters number is a corporate switchboard and the identity verification line handles only the verification step, not the contents of a report.

Emails and the candidate portal

• Candidate support email: candidate.support@sterlingcheck.com.
• Dispute email: dispute.resolution@sterlingcheck.com.
• Candidate portal: mybackgroundcheck.sterlingcheck.com, which is where a copy of a report is requested and where a dispute is normally started.

The candidate portal now routes candidates onward to First Advantage's care platform, which is a visible consequence of the acquisition described below rather than a sign that anything has gone wrong.

Sterling is now part of First Advantage

First Advantage completed its acquisition of Sterling Check Corp. on 31 October 2024, in a transaction the companies valued at approximately $2.2 billion. First Advantage announced the completion through its investor relations channel and filed the announcement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Sterling's own client contact page now identifies the company as Sterling, a First Advantage company.

For an applicant, the practical consequences are three. Correspondence may arrive from either brand. The dispute route may hand off between the two. And the entity named on your adverse action notice is the one that governs where a dispute goes — not whichever brand appears in the email signature.

The Sterling entity names that can appear on a report

• Sterling Infosystems, Inc. — the principal United States entity.
• Bishops Services LLC
• STS SID LLC
• A-Check America, LLC
• Employment Background Investigations, LLC
• Sterling Backcheck Canada Corp. — for Canadian screening.
• Sterling Identity, which handles fingerprint-based screening, at 10220 SW Greenburg Road, Portland, OR 97223.

Any of those names can appear on a disclosure form, an authorization form or an adverse action notice. An unfamiliar one is not by itself an error. Sending a dispute to the wrong one, however, wastes the clock, and the clock matters under the statute.

Which employers name Sterling?

Fewer than the internet suggests, and the reason is worth explaining because it is a lesson in what a source is.

• W.W. Grainger. Sterling publishes a customer story naming Grainger, describing the screening services provided and quoting a named Grainger employee. That page still resolves and we verified it.
• Liveops. Sterling published a customer story naming Liveops, now hosted on First Advantage's resource platform following the acquisition.

Sterling's customer story library is being folded into First Advantage's resource center, and most of the individual customer story pages now redirect to First Advantage's domain rather than resolving. Lists of Sterling clients published elsewhere — including on competing law firm pages — were largely drawn from those pages, and those pages no longer resolve. We do not repeat names we cannot verify, so the names on those lists are not repeated here.

The redirection is itself the finding. When a vendor's entire published client library moves to an acquirer's domain, any list built from it becomes undateable, and an undateable list of business relationships on a law firm's website is not worth the space it occupies.

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

The two relationships above reflect material published by Sterling 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 story is also marketing, which means it shows who a company wants to be associated with rather than a complete or current roster.

So a list like this 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 which entity is named. After the First Advantage acquisition the notice may name Sterling Infosystems, A-Check America, Employment Background Investigations or First Advantage itself.
• Request your file directly from the agency. You are entitled to a copy of the file a consumer reporting agency holds on you.

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 Sterling report can arrive from a number or an email domain that appears nowhere in the company's published material. An unlisted number is not proof of a scam, and a number that matches this list is not proof the sender is genuine — caller ID and email display names are both trivially spoofed.

Numbers circulating on directory sites and complaint forums as Sterling 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 Sterling 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, including which Sterling or First Advantage entity.
• 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, addressed to 6150 Oak Tree Boulevard, Suite 490, Independence, OH 44131 rather than to any older address, 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

Sterling mixed my file with someone else's — what can I do?

Request your Sterling report, document what belongs to the other person, and dispute it in writing with Sterling. It must investigate — generally within 30 days — and remove information it can't verify as yours. If the mixed file cost you a job, an FCRA attorney can help you seek compensation.

How do I dispute a Sterling background check?

Get the report and the rights summary from the employer, compare every entry to your own records, and file a written dispute with Sterling with supporting documents. Keep copies of everything.

Can I sue Sterling for an inaccurate report?

Yes. If Sterling failed to follow reasonable procedures for accuracy or didn't properly investigate your dispute, you may have an FCRA claim.

How long does Sterling have to investigate my dispute?

Generally about 30 days from when you file it; if it can't verify the information, it must correct or delete it.

What does it cost to hire you?

Nothing up front. The FCRA shifts attorney's fees to the company that broke the law, so you pay only if we recover for you. The review is free.

What is the current Sterling mailing address for a background check dispute?

Sterling, 6150 Oak Tree Boulevard, Suite 490, Independence, OH 44131. This is the address Sterling's own candidate portal publishes and the address the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau records in its published list of consumer reporting companies. An older New York address at 1 State Street Plaza circulates widely on third-party pages, but that was a former head office.

What is the Sterling background check phone number?

Candidate customer service is 888-889-5248, also written 1-888-889-5248, (888) 889-5248 or 8888895248, with published hours of Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lists the same number. Sterling's global headquarters line is 1-800-899-2272, and identity verification support is 844-989-0884.

How do I dispute a Sterling background check report?

Sterling publishes dispute.resolution@sterlingcheck.com for disputes and candidate.support@sterlingcheck.com for general candidate support, and the candidate portal at mybackgroundcheck.sterlingcheck.com is where a copy of a report is requested and where a dispute is normally started. Put the dispute in writing, keep proof of mailing, and keep the responses. The paper trail is what establishes what the agency knew and when.

Is Sterling still an independent background check company?

No. First Advantage completed its acquisition of Sterling Check Corp. on 31 October 2024, in a transaction the companies valued at approximately 2.2 billion dollars. First Advantage announced the completion through its investor relations channel and filed it with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Sterling's own client contact page now identifies the company as Sterling, a First Advantage company.

Which employers use Sterling for background checks?

Sterling publishes a customer story naming W.W. Grainger, quoting a named Grainger employee and describing the screening services provided, and published a customer story naming Liveops that is now hosted on First Advantage's resource platform. Most of Sterling's other customer story pages now redirect to First Advantage's domain rather than resolving, so lists of Sterling clients published elsewhere can no longer be verified. We do not repeat names we cannot check.

What Sterling company names can appear on my background check paperwork?

Sterling Infosystems, Inc. is the principal United States entity. Bishops Services LLC, STS SID LLC, A-Check America, LLC and Employment Background Investigations, LLC can also appear, along with Sterling Backcheck Canada Corp. for Canadian screening and Sterling Identity for fingerprint-based screening. An unfamiliar name is not by itself an error, but sending a dispute to the wrong entity wastes time that matters under the statute.

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, including this one.

My Sterling report shows a record that is not mine. What can I do?

Request your file from the agency in writing, then compare every name, date of birth, address and Social Security number fragment against your own records. Mixed files usually announce themselves in the identifiers rather than in the offenses. Check whether the record has been expunged, sealed, dismissed or reported past the period the statute allows, then dispute in writing and keep the letters, responses and envelopes.

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.