| 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.
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