CRA Help Desk... Review

Court Access Fees on the RISE... Why?

Court access fees are on the rise.  What does that mean to the screening industry and the clients that we serve?

In years past we would see updates to court access fees maybe every quarter or every six months. In the last year we are seeing updated court access fees every month and the additional fees to access court records are starting to stack up.

By my calculations court access fees billed to clients at my background screening company went up by more than 15% in 2024. This is a pretty big increase.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST TO HEAR MORE...

Connect with Tim Santoni
https://www.TimSantoni.com

Contact Santoni Backgrounds
https://www.santonibackgrounds.com

Los Angeles County - Dates of Birth Removed?

The Los Angeles County Superior court has announced that partial dates of birth will be removed from the public kiosks and from the court website.

What does this mean?  How does it impact you? 

The Los Angeles County Superior Court announced on February 20th that as of the close of business on Friday, February 23rd that partial dates of birth will no longer be available via KIOSKS or ONLINE.

If you read this release carefully you will notice that the partial dates of birth will be removed from the court website and the publicly available KIOSKS. It doesn’t say that they dates of birth wont’ be available with clerk assisted searches.

So, what does this mean? What is the true impact to background screeners, employers, and landlords?

Connect with TIM SANTONI

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PBSA is celebrating 20 years. They are are a force in supporting and enhancing the background screening industry worldwide.


PBSA 2023 (Texas)

LOCATION:
Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center (Grapevine, Texas)

WHEN:
Sunday, September 10th through Tuesday September 12th 

On this episode of Background Screening Tips and Tech, Tim Santoni provides some insights into the show.

It's not too late to register for PBSA 2023. Here is a link.
https://thepbsa.org/events/2023-annual-conference/

See you in Dallas!

Kevin Bachman Interview

Kevin was a key executive at Employment Screen IQ, which was acquired by Sterling. He consultants with industry professionals and works with end users, CRAs and data furnishers.

He is the The CRA Doctor. He is active with PBSA and has served on the BSCC committee.

Kevin and his partner Jason Morris now run IQubed advisors.

On this episode we talk about... How to build the VALUE of your CRA Business.

PBSA Accreditation and the benefits from the compliance/legal side. We also discuss benefits from a sales, marketing and training perspective.

Kevin talks about non-traditional companies that are accredited.

Connect with Kevin

Tech Stack

The 7 Apps/Tech/Software you need to run a better a business.

1.     Office 365 or Google Apps (email)

2.     Accounting Software w/Payment Processing (QuickBooks or XERO

3.     DocuSign or Panda Doc

4.     Cloud Storage:  DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive

5.     CRM – Salesforce, Zoho, ?

6.     Email Marketing (MailChimp, ConvertKit, Constant Contact)

7.     Team Messaging Platform (Teams, Slack)

SSN Trace... Show it or Hide it?

On this episode Tim Santoni discusses the history of the SSN Trace. What it's good for. What it's not good for.

The legal/compliance arguments for including the SSN trace in the report and why it might be better to run it and hide it from the report.

A few options to consider.

OPTION 1 -Run the SSN Trace and include all of the results in the report with no review.

OPTION 2 - Run the SSN Trace and remove misspelled names, obvious errors and addresses that do not belong to the applicant.

OPTION 3 - Run the SSN trace BUT do NOT provide the data on the final report.

OPTION 4 - Don’t run the SSN Trace at all.

Connect with Tim on LinkedIn

Derek Hinton - CRA Zoom- Interview

On this episode of Background Screening Tips & Tech, Tim Santoni interviews Derek Hinton of CRA Zoom.

They discuss Derek's history in the screening industry, the PBSA Accreditation process and why it is valuable for background screening companies to complete have it.  They also dive into the services that CRA Zoom offers.

Stick around until the end to learn about Derek's Human Trafficking Compliance Package.

CRAZoom
Derek Hinton
Tim Santoni 

Background Screening Packages... so many options

At a bare minimum the social security number trace and national criminal database search are the typical starting point for most screening packages.  The national criminal database has obvious flaws, but this search also covers high level government watch lists and sex offender registries, so it is something that employers are comfortable with as a foundation for their background report.

So, once you have the SSN trace and national criminal covered the next question becomes the county criminal searches.  There are a few flavors of this search

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE TO LEARN MORE.

Connect with Tim on LinkedIn: 

Social Media Screening... current trends

Statistics- many employers are using Social Media to screen applicants, but the big question is are they doing it themselves or are they using an FCRA compliant screening partner.

The current available sites being searched by the AI and Technology Solutions available cover PUBLIC profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & TikTok.

Trends- as price comes down and lawsuits arise employers will see the value in using a partner for social media backgrounds.

Compliance- HR professionals get uneasy when they look at new searches and assessment of those searches in hiring decisions due to the massive amount of litigation in the HR/Compliance/Hiring space.

Suggestions- if you are going to do it, do it right and avoid potential risk.

The trusted partners in the social media screening space.
Social Intelligence (now owned by FAMA)
Ferretly

CRA Help Desk

The CRA Help Desk is a great tool offered by BRB Publications.  The CRA Help Desk offers state & FCRA compliance and reporting guidelines when it comes to reporting of criminal records.

If you are a researchers handling compliance and adjudication this tool is a must have.

The HR Help Desk is an 'add-on' option for Background Screeners that want to offer similar resources to their clients. Things like the 7-year states, Ban The Box guidance, EEOC Guidelines and much more.

The full version that includes the CRA Help Desk and the HR Help Desk runs about $200.00 per year.


BRBPublications.com

BRB also offers MVR Decoder & PRRN (Public Record Retriever Network)