Background check reveals many facts
that allow companies to practice due diligence and
empowers individuals to make better choices about
people in their life.
There are essentially three different ways one can
check the background of a company or individual. Depending
upon situation, one or more of these options may be
used in combination for best result
Do it Yourself
Toughest of all - you must know sources of public
information, possess enough search skill and have
the patience. Your search result is further limited
by accessibility of public information. Works best
for US companies or individuals as that country probably
has the best public record storage and access system.
Often, this is the first course of action, failing
which you may turn to other options listed below
Turnaround time : Few hours
Cost: Free (excluding your time and
ISP charge for Internet access)
Delegate the search
You may decide to delegate the task to an agency
who does background check for a fee. This is very
useful for countries like India where very few public
records are available in Internet. Background check
here means doing lot of legwork in physically visiting
the organizations, collecting information from Registrar
of Companies or similar organization , counter-checking
claims etc.
There are many agencies who have specialized in background
checking and charge a lot less than established names
like Dun and Bradstreet
Turnaround Time: 7-10 days (can
be shrunk to 2-3 days by paying extra)
Cost: USD 50 - 80 per report
Use Special Software
There are special purpose software that can check
public records on your behalf. If you are doing background
check quite often - consider buying one of these.
However, this option works best for US records. Besides,
quality of search result may not be to your satisfaction
all the time.
With such a software, you can search FBI files, get
credit report information, obtain criminal records
on anyone, find a cell phone numbers owner and their
address, find unlisted phone numbers, check out a
prospective employee (or your boss), investigate a
suspicious person or neighbor, search driver license,
marriage & divorce records etc.
Turnaround Time: Less than hour
Cost: USD 50 - 300 (one time cost
for software)
We shall discuss details of each of these sections
as also various Internet sources in future issues.
