FCRA Compliance 2017 Know the Basics

Welcome, and thank you for joining the webinar today.

Mining this at the end of January, I'm a portfolio manager with Tractown.

As an administrative and financial solutions provider, to staffing and consulting industry,

it is our philosophy to be an active member of the staffing industry by staying abreast

of the ever-changing marketplace.

For that reason, Tractown was pleased to launch the Industry Insider webinar series designed

to share our expert knowledge and resources with our fellow staffing industry colleagues.

One of our core values is to build relationships and become a leading resource to staffing

and consulting firms nationwide.

Our presenters today are Michael Thompson and Joe Rotando with Sterling Talent Solutions.

Michael has done what Sterling Talent Solutions for four years.

As a director of sales, Michael is here to help clients mitigate applicant and employee

risk with fully compliant practices throughout a comprehensive suite of products and services.

Michael has chosen to be an expert in staffing industry during his time with Sterling,

personally partnering with many of the local chapters of ASA as an expert in background screening

and drug testing.

Joe has spent with Sterling Talent Solutions since August of 1978.

He has filled many roles with the company through the years, including polygraph examiner,

director of operations, and is currently the vice president of compliance.

Sterling Talent Solutions provides hiring piece of mind by delivering a simpler, smarter

background screening and onboarding experience for employers' niche worldwide.

Their comprehensive suite of cloud-based background screening and onboarding solutions deliver

accurate, reliable results, and tools to maintain compliance throughout the hiring cycle.

With 18 offices in eight countries, 13 of more than 3500 employees proudly serves

over 50,000 customers around the world, including 25% of the Fortune 100.

Sterling Talent Solutions is accredited by the National Association of Professional

Background Screeners, a distinction earned by fewer than 10% of all background screening companies.

Many staffing firms conduct background checks on prospective job applicants

as part of the employment screening and hiring process.

The use of this information obtained is governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

In today's edition of the industry and federal webinar, Sterling Talent Solutions will cover

what employers need to know about compliance, which have excluding general information

for seizures required by the FCRA, denying employment, and other legislation to consider.

By the end of this session, you'll know the basics to fear credit reporting act compliance.

If you have any questions during the presentation, please utilize the Q&A feature,

locate them on the right to a bar. After the presentation, there will be time for questions,

and an opportunity for you to give us your feedback on today's webinar by completing a short

exit call. Please join me in welcoming Michael and Joe.

Great. Thanks so much, Amanda. We appreciate the introduction.

Hello to everybody that's on the call. Again, my name is Mike Thompson. We have your

turn on the lounge as well. We are here to talk about SCRI compliance in 2017.

We want to be able to give an introduction into SCRI compliance and be able to answer some

questions and really be able to better arm and supply everyone on the call with the information

to best guide their hiring practices. I want to remind everyone we go ahead and get started.

As Amanda mentioned, please don't hesitate to ask any questions using the chat feature.

We want to make sure that Joe and I have a few minutes at the end to go over and get back to some

thoughts, specific questions. Please join in the conversation. You can find sterling on Twitter,

on LinkedIn. We are oftentimes sharing information in the industry, whether it be staffing

specific or really is background screening overall. Feel free to contact Joe and I and Amanda

will be distributing our contact information shortly after the call. Don't hesitate to

download our resources. As mentioned, we have webinars that we host ourselves, white tapers,

one pages. I think that can definitely explain a bit more about the industry. Background screening is

a whole and we are today at SCRI compliance. Following the introduction that Amanda gave us,

there are a gate for us. Just to recap, we are the world largest global employment stream firm.

We are about 20 offices running about nine different countries in growing.

With about 3700 plus employees were trusted about 50,000 per cent of 50,000 clients,

including that 25% of the Fortune 100. Across that client-based, we perform about 12 million

candidates, background streams annually, with that 80 million different components across those 12

million candidates. And to again, the follow-up and introduction, I am Mike Thompson, the director

of self here out of our New York Headquartered Office. There was a company for a few years now and my

specific focus is in the staffing industry. I have not only been attending shows and events,

with the ASA, but also with staffing industry analysts. I take great pride in learning about

your industry and the trials and tribulations that staffing companies experience in their daily operations.

My goal in connecting and communicating with Tricon is to attempt to bring some

education and knowledge about the staffing industry and how it interacts with what we do here

in background screening, drug testing, onboarding, I-9, either by, etc. And Joel, give you a chance

to introduce yourself. All right, thank you, Michael. So, as Michael said, this is Joe Retondo,

the VP of Compliance here with Sterling. As you heard, I've been here. We need to calculate,

I'll figure it out for you, 38 plus years. But that my photo is out there, so you see,

hold by, yeah. And I do these webinars typically if you don't show the photo, but I feel a lot

of roles here at Sterling. And, oh, maybe about 10 years ago, his determined compliance is

becoming a really important component of background checking. So, I took on this role.

And I do webinars for our clients, and I'm here to help and answer questions. As I've

been told to you already, if there's any questions about any particular slide, we suddenly could

stop and address them and then we'll take questions at the end also. So, what are we going to

cover today? Well, general information about the Fair Credit Reporting Act and some of the laws

that govern background checking, the procedures that are required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act

for you denying employment, which is always a topic of importance, and making sure that you

have compliant methods when it comes to denying an individual employment based on a background

and some of the legislation that we feel is important for you to know. So, I'm going to start with

some general information just to give you an idea about the Fair Credit Reporting Act and simply

put the lawless past in part, do the complaints from consumers that their credit reports were

incorrect, and as a result, the word credits in the title. So, many times I get asked,

well, what if I'm not doing credit checks? Do I still have to follow the Fair Credit Reporting

Act and the answer is absolutely yes, the services that's sterling provides, including criminal

history searches, motor vehicle searches, employment verifications, education verifications, etc.

All fall under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. CRA that stands for Consumer Reporting Agency.

Sterling is a consumer reporting agency, not to be confused with the credit bureaus,

or the credit report agency such as Trans Union, who supplies actually our credit reports,

and in whom forces the FCRA, well, it's now the consumer financial protection bureau,

the CFPB, having replaced the FTC in that role. All right, so let's address the procedures that

are required of you by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. So, there are actually only four procedures that

you must follow to be compliant with the FCRA. The end use of certification,

disclosure and authorization, and in the two-step adverse action process. Let's look at the

first procedure, which is the end use of certification of use. So, this is a certification of

compliance by the user, which would be your organization, that you will abide by the Fair

Credit Reporting Act. This is the document that's started at the beginning of the relationship.

And specifically, it is your responsibility to ensure that every individual that you will be

running a background check signs a disclosure and authorization form prior to submitting the order

to sterling, and that you conduct the adverse action process, which we'll talk about in a few

minutes, when denying employment based on information contained in the background check that's

sterling provided. Okay, so now let's look at the disclosure and authorization form.

So, as you said, everyone has to sign this form before the background check gets started

and sterling with the assistance of outside council can provide sample, stand alone,

disclosure, and authorization forms. Our sample form provides for continuing consent. So, there's no

expiration date for the use of the disclosure and authorization form if it contains the proper

language that we do have in our form. However, there is one exception that is California.

California does not permit continuing consent. New forms must be obtained for every background check

in California. Okay, so the 49 states, if you hire someone, they sign a disclosure and authorization

form, and then six months later, or you want to do yearly background checks, you do not need

to get another one. However, in California, each time you would do a background check on that

individual, you would need to get a new consent. Okay, what this disclosure authorization

should provide the federal summary of consumer rights, and there are a few states that actually have

their own summary of rights that we feel should also be distributed with the disclosure and

what the authorization. So, I'll take a breath there before we go to the next

process procedure, which is adverse action. Is there any any questions about the end use of

certification? Any questions about disclosure and what the authorization? And the disclosure

situation is quite important because there is litigation out there when you don't have proper

forms, or you don't get individuals to sign the forms, or as we said earlier, these are

stand-alone forms that disclosure cannot be put on an application. It has to be a stand-alone

form, and there is litigation out there if you don't follow these procedures onto the fair

credit reporting act. Okay, so let's go over the next process of procedure, which is the

adverse action process. And what happens is if you ask, you would ask yourself, is there

any disqualifying information in the background report? And actually, if there is not, if the

background report is clear, you actually have no other obligations onto the S-Sire, except in a

few states that actually require you to send a copy of the report to the individual that being

California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Oklahoma. So individuals in those states actually

have a right to get a copy of their report if they check the box that's on the form. But if not,

you have no other responsibilities. However, if the report does reveal disqualifying information,

there are two more steps that are required. So if you disqualify an applicant, for example,

on the basis of information provided in our background check, you must follow this two step

procedure that I'm going to review now. Now, just before I go into it, Sterling does have the ability

to handle this process for our clients. So it is something that we're able to do, but if you're

doing it on your own, let's just quickly review the pre-adverse action process. I guess,

let's go to the next slide, I guess. Oh, no, actually, you know what, let's just talk it out here.

The first step is in the pre-adverse action letter. I'm sorry, Michael. So the letter is sent

with a copy of the report and a copy of the federal summary of rights. And as I mentioned,

any states that have states summary of rights. And it's just one second as my computer just

locked me off. Okay. And it would be again, a copy of the report. So that's not just the disqualifying

information. So for example, somebody is a criminal record and that's the reason you're going to

deny employment. You wouldn't send them just that piece of the report. You would suddenly

entire report. Okay. And this letter actually typically the recommendation is ascended by regular

mail. But if you do wish to email or facts, the letter to the candidate, please make sure that

sent in a secure manner, whether it be password-protected or consulting with your IT folks,

to make sure that it's sent in a secure fashion. The last thing you want to do is send a

background check report to the wrong individual because you missed typed something their email address

et cetera. Okay. So a little bit more about the process. Typically, individuals don't

contest the accuracy of the report because obviously the information is correct. And that person

goes away. And then five days later, you would send the adverse action letter, which is again,

just the letter that we could provide you sample letters for these two things, which basically tells

the individual that they're not being employed because of the example being used as a criminal record.

Okay. Now if the individual does contact Sterling within five days, we recommend that you hold the

job open for at least another five to 10 days to allow Sterling to complete a reinvestigation.

So that is a burden that is on Sterling. So if you would run a background check,

somebody has a criminal record and they contact you, they contact us to say the records wrong,

the case has been dismissed or sponge. You don't need to do anything. We take over and we would

conduct a reinvestigation. We would send somebody to the court to reinvestigate to pull a file

to see if we can get to the bottom of what this person is disputing. Okay. And there are times

however, that an individual does successfully dispute information in a background report. An example

I kind of said already is the fact that somebody has a criminal record. We report that we found

from the court, but they hired a lawyer, got the case dismissed or expunged, and the court doesn't

update their record. So we reported the original record yet the person actually at this point does

not have the record because it's been expunged. Well, we would then reinvestigate and find that

what they've said is accurate, that the case is expunged, and we would then send you a copy of a

revised report showing that the person does not have that criminal record. And obviously the

individual would get a copy showing that their record is clear. Okay, so that's a little bit

about the adverse action process. And again, as I said, Sterling can take over this process for you

if you would like, or basically you just would follow the steps that I had just reviewed.

All right, we also have my one point that I always like to add in the adverse action process. That's

really important to remember. The employer is this process is important for free employment as

you're bringing on new candidates, but it's also important if you're restraining a candidate for

a promotion, if it's an internal move, or continuing employment based on a continuous screen that

you run on your current candidate pool. Again, any time a decision is made based on or sending it

off or terminating employment, denying promotion, the adverse action process is something that

needs to be performed. Very good, Michael. All right, so with topics, that's obviously very important

and we've just covered some of it touching base with the adverse action process is can you use

some of our information or reports to deny employment in one, a little bit of a controversial

issue or credit reports. So can you use a credit report to deny somebody a job? I mean, the

short answer is yes, but we recommend best practice devices to be very careful regarding job

related determination before denying somebody a job based strictly based on a credit report.

Again, best practice device not to use medical bills and evaluating a credit report

and what's gone on actually in this country there are about 10 states and you see them listed there

and New York City that have passed laws that restrict the running of a credit report in a

employment matter and then using a credit report in denying someone a job. So if you're in any of

those states or in New York City, please be careful. Make sure that you're following the

particular laws there in these states in the New York City. Frankly, New York City where

with Michael and I sitting today, it's virtually impossible to run a credit check outside of maybe

finner related for the financial industry and maybe some other industry exception. So if you're

in any other basic industry, you're pretty much cannot run a credit check any more in New York City.

And we expect possibly other cities or states to pass these laws. So it's important to

to really understand what you can and cannot do based on running credit checks.

Okay, any questions about credit reports?

Okay, so let's take a look at some other legislation that you need to consider

and the first law is again, this is a happens to be a New York state law.

It's been termed in New York article 23A and in a nutshell, it means that if you're a New York

employer, you are required to engage in an individual fact specific analysis

before you take adverse action based on an applicant or employee's criminal record.

Okay, so this is a law. If we report back criminal record and you are thinking of denying

employment, you must do a specific analysis before you can deny them a job.

So in the middle of the screen, you see six bullet points, and this is what is considered

doing the analysis. You need to look at the responsibilities and duties that the person is

looking towards in terms of the job, how much time is a lapse as to person committed the crime,

how old is the person when they committed the crime, have they been rehabilitated

and are you looking to protect the interest of your employees in the public?

So this is something that you must do if you are a New York state employer.

Then we have, in that past, I think it was 2012, and then the EEOC

equal employment opportunity commission, they issued general guidance. The difference being

in New York, it's a law that EEOC, this is guidance, and in these four bullet points,

this kind of sums it up, that the EEOC wants organizations to eliminate policies or practices

that exclude people from employment strictly based on that person having a criminal record.

An employer should not consider arrest records that did not lead to conviction.

So in other words, that's a situation somebody is arrested and the case gets dismissed,

whether they found not guilty. That's an arrest that did not lead to conviction. So this is something

sterling has been preaching for so many years and now the EEOC also feels that way.

The third bullet point employers should not have a blanket denial policy based on a conviction

record. For example, we do not hire anyone with a felony record. That doesn't mean you have to

hire people with felony records, but you cannot have a blanket policy that would deny somebody

job because they have a felony record. An in the last bullet point reiterates the New York law

and sends that employer should conduct an individual analysis and they added and dialogue,

meaning they want companies to actually speak to individuals in using the criminal record

in making an employment decisions. They want employers to actually talk to the individual

about their record and ask them those questions as New York to reiterate how old you

when you commit the crime, how many years ago was it or again, these questions maybe don't

necessarily have the person been rehabilitated by looking at their background, etc. So that's the EEOC

guidance. It's very, very important. They do go after companies if they have a complaint from an

applicant. So this is really important that you follow these instructions. So something else that

you know what I'm asked about trends in background checks. Probably the biggest trend are the band

the box laws. Not sure if everyone has heard of these laws, but the band the box laws make it

illegal from employers to request on an initial written job application. Any information

about the person's criminal history. So the old question, have you ever committed a crime or have

you ever been convicted of a crime? Would not be legal in their over 15 states and over 100

cities that have adopted this type of policy in either private sector, applicants, or public

sector applicants. So this is something that continues to grow. The most recent law that was passes

in the city of Los Angeles, excuse me, the Fair Chance Act Initiative, a New York City which I

highlight here, and this is from 2015, they passed the local the Fair Chance Act. And in this case,

besides taking away the question on the application, it prohibits New York City employers from

requesting a criminal background check until after a conditional offer is made. So if you're in

New York City, you must make the job offer, then present the person with the doing the background

check and having the disclosure and authorizations form sign. And LA is actually similar.

So again, this is something we see. We think it's going to continue. They're going to be more

cities and states that pass this type of law. The recommendation we've been given by our

council or outside council is if you're in more than one city or state, you probably should

strongly consider eliminating the criminal question from your application altogether.

Especially if you're doing a criminal background check. And so speak, you don't need that question.

You're going to be, you're going to find out the person who's a criminal record. You don't need

them to check the box that says yes, they have a criminal record and also keeping in mind

and many people actually don't tell a truth and they check off no anyway. So for our clients,

you know, we don't see this as being a major issue based on the fact that if you're running a

thorough background check and a thorough criminal history search, you're going to find out that

information and you still have to go through the adverse action process. So it's no longer,

you know, 20 years ago when you basically said to a person or you lot on your application,

I'm not hiring you, you still have to go through adverse action. So they're going to know the reason

and which is why again, we feel when you're running the background check and a criminal history

search, the bad and the box was, it's not going to be that much of a factor. You're still

going to get the information. He's still going to be able to make a decision based on your

individual analysis. Right, so I will take a breath and ask if there's any questions about

the bad and the box was. I hope everybody's familiar with them or if not at least now you are

and so again, we want to open it up to questions and see if there's anything out there that I've just

reviewed. Sure, I do have questions that have come in. Do you see similar laws like New York

article 23A trending and to the rest of the nation? Yeah, if I put my amazing crescan hat on,

I'm trying to know if it knows who crescan is, but the fact that yes, you know, the EOC copied

in New York law, Los Angeles, very similar San Francisco has a tough band-the-box law. So again,

if I had to predict, I would predict it will continue to, these laws will continue to pass.

They will continue to be tougher. There was some talk about even a federal law. And frankly,

again, to me, if there was one law, it would make things a lot easier for all of us. You know,

since we're going to have to follow the band-the-box in all these different cities and states,

if they just made one law, well, like I said, to make life easier for all of us. And since you are

running background checks and criminal history searches, it is not that big of an issue. Even the

fact in New York and LA, we have to make a job offer before you do the background check. That's

again, a recommendation we've been making for so many years. You should not be collecting

disclosure and authorization forms which have data birth on them before you make a job offer.

You don't want to know the data birth before the job offer is made. So again, even these parts

of the law, it's something Sterling has been recommending for a long time. And just one more step,

you know, nobody's asked this question, I don't think, but why are these laws being passed?

What, how come? And the best way I can answer it is, you know, the law is called the Fair

Chance Act. It's to give people a chance who have criminal records. And the feeling is when

that question is on an application, somebody checks the box and yes, they don't even get to

see anyone, they don't get an interview. They're automatic, they eliminated. I think all of us

would agree, that's really not all that fair. People can have criminal records of a minor nature.

And if they don't get a chance to see someone and explain it, it's just simply not being fair

to the individual. So the theory behind it, I would say I agree with that people should all have

a fair chance to be employed. And by eliminating the question, I guess that's what a lot of

the legislators and governors and mayors, et cetera, hoping for. Okay, and another question,

if my company is based in New York, but my applicant lives in Chicago, do I still have to

follow the New York article 23A? Yeah, I would answer that as yes, because the law is

for New York City employers. There's been no litigation on this topic. It's a really good question

because of the fact that so is it where the person lives, or where they're going to work,

or where the company's located, an hour approach to this topic is a conservative one. So if the

company's located in New York, the person lives outside New York, we would still say they should

follow Article 23A. Well, vice versa, the company is in New Jersey, but the person's going to be

employed in the city of New York for that company. We would recommend the same thing giving them

articles 23A when they fill out their disclosure and authorization forms. And if there is that

verse action following Article 23A, because there has been no litigation, the last thing we

want is any sterling client be the first one sued under it. So we take a very conservative approach,

but the law says New York City employers. So I guess you could make an argument that if the company

if the company's located in New Jersey and the applicant lives in New York and is going to work in,

or not going to work in New York, but work in New Jersey that you wouldn't have to do it,

but like I said, we take a conservative approach and we'd recommend it to do it and to follow the law.

Okay. EEOC general guidance slide. This is a question related to that. Some clients

are very perspective in what they want, or what they will, or will not accept. So for example,

they'll agree to someone who has had a misdemeanor, but not if it was a crime committed in the past

three years. Does this mean that this is illegal to do if you're following your customer's

guidance or requirements? Well, again, according to EEOC, which is not a law. So illegal, I

wouldn't use the word illegal, but that would not be what the EEOC wants you to follow once the

client to follow, because you're automatically eliminating people with that record within the

three years. So there, according to EEOC, this shouldn't be a policy of that nature.

You know, we defer, again, I'm not an attorney to corporate counsel with this kind of situation,

but my opinion would be that this should not have that type of policy. Now, that doesn't mean

they have to hire the person, but they shouldn't have a policy that, see, that's automatically

eliminating somebody. And that's what the EEOC, New York. That's what they're looking to stop. People

to stop people getting eliminated without having a chance. The example I had used was having a

felony record, having a policy that says we don't hire felons. Well, you don't have to hire

felons, but you can't have a policy that says we don't hire felons. Okay, so similar to this,

you can't have a policy that says we don't hire anybody within the last three years who has a

conviction, or if that was exactly what that policy was. Okay, and your statement here may have

answered this question. It's along the same guidelines that I'll go ahead and read it anyway to

make sure it's been covered. Kind of blanket statement be made regarding refusal of employment

based on a specific offense such as sex offenders or violent crimes. Now, again, coin to EEOC,

they do not want to see that, but you know, just talking it out loud here, it's, you don't,

they don't have to hire people with those records, but they want an individual now supposed to be

conducted. The person has to get the pre-adversational letter would have copied of their report.

They should be a dialogue with the individual, and then the decision can be made not to employ,

and the person has a right to contest that record if they feel it's not accurate,

but, and then the person can be denied. So it's really, really just following, you know, the guidance

and keeping out of the, the way of the EEOC, because I said, they, they do go have to come

because there was one litigation against Pepsi, Pepsi paid $3.1 million in the settlement,

because they were not hiring individuals, were the rest records that didn't lead the conviction.

I believe it was, they were open cases, in other words, somebody was arrested on February 2, 2017.

The next court date was May 5, 2017, so that's still an open case, and in some states,

that's illegal to deny somebody job based on an open record, and I believe that's what they were doing,

and they settled that case for $3.1 million. So, it is serious, and, you know,

you just, you must do things properly to stay out of the way of EEOC.

That would also have. I have another question, let's come in. It's the initial application process

includes everything, including tax forms, i9s, and background release before a job offer is made.

Is this an acceptable application process?

Well, our recommendation is that the other forms you mentioned, I have to say, I've heard of them,

but I'm just going to talk about disclosure and authorization or consent forms. We don't even use

the word release for many more, because that has been litigation, regards to release,

you know, so we don't want to release, we just want consent, that those forms should be

separate from the employment application, so the disclosure, we're disclosing what's going to be done,

the authorization, which is basically the page of the person's signs,

authorizing the background check, should be separate from an employment application that, again,

is part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and it has been litigation against companies who stick

those disclosure and authorization on an application, you know, in the end of the application,

no, it should be on a separate page, they should be on separate pages, and not be part of the

application. Okay, and are you able to provide that document before the job offer is made, or does that

have to come after the offer of employment? Okay, provide it. Sure. Well, as I said earlier,

disclosure and what the authorization page and data collection page has information, name,

address, social security number, and data birth. So again, I'm not an attorney, I'm not an HR expert,

but collecting data birth before making a job offer can be considered problematic.

Company can be charged with age and discrimination, so our recommendation, which we recommend this

for many, many, many years, is to always make a job offer, and then present disclosure and authorization,

and then collect data birth. Data birth is necessary for us to do the criminal history searches.

Excuse me, so it is a piece of information we do need, but it should be collected after the job offer.

I know, first of all, that doesn't work well, but I'm telling you again to protect our clients,

that would be our recommendation, and I know there were companies out there that don't quite do with that

way, but now, if somebody's been in the box, gloves are actually specifically telling companies

like a New York and LA that they have to make the offer first. Okay, another question, how,

if at all, are the rules different for those independent contractor rules, 1099 versus temporary

staffing employees? Yeah, we look at all employees, all folks in these situations as employees,

or even volunteers for that matter. We do a lot of work for volunteer organizations,

people volunteering, not being paid, and they volunteer work, and under the FSA, we kind of look at

everybody's same. So, we follow the same procedures and laws that we review today,

whether it's a contractor, whether it's a staffing employee, or whether it's a volunteer.

Okay. I hope that answers that question. Yes, I believe it does. Can you explain a little bit

about why there are two adverse action letters? Sure, this process is wouldn't place

basically to give individuals the opportunity to dispute the information in a background check.

So, if there was just one letter that basically told would be telling somebody that they're not

getting a job because of a criminal record, they wouldn't be an opportunity to dispute. So, when

they get that adverse letter, the pre-advers letter would copy the report, that's giving them the

chance to contact, sterling, and their perspective employer to say, time out. I think there's a

mistake. This is wrong. This is not me, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever they're, you know,

situation is that they're disputing. Excuse me, and we have a team in our independence or

Ohio office that handles this type of situation. So, we provide an 800 number, that individual,

this is in the pre-advers letter, and they would contact our folks out there, and they would explain,

though this record's not mine or this record's mine, but it's not a felony, it's a misdemeanor.

Whatever they wanted to dispute, and then we'll send a researcher back to the court to pull a

file to confirm what the person's saying or to verify that what we originally reported was accurate.

So, that's why there are two letters giving the individual the chance to dispute the information.

So, if you offered them employment and you sent that adverse action letter, and they were able to

dispute why you were not going to continue with the offer, would you then have to give them

that position if they were able to prove their key. Yeah, that's again another good issue to

bring up. The fact that once the person's contact or dispute, they would typically call the

perspective employer to say, hey, I just got this report, it's not right. You know, my lawyer got this

case dismissed, and this says I have a conviction. So, you as the employer should then hold that job open

and then the individual would contact sterling like I just said, and we would do our reinvestigation.

Typically, those reinvestigations take from one to five days, really depending on the court

because when we send our researcher back, there are times when you have cooperative court clerks who

pull a file and we'll be able to review it right away. And as other times those files are on

microfiche or in a warehouse and it takes a bit longer. So, but during that time, the recommendation

is to hold a job open because if that dispute is in the favor of that applicant, and let's say

three days later, we contact you and verify that that case actually did get dismissed. They do not

have a conviction. The court now was updated their records, but when they gave it to us originally,

they said it was a conviction. You want to be able to give that person the job because they don't

have that criminal record. If you fill the job and they clear their background check,

frankly, again, there's been litigation based on that because that person now has been denied a

job even though they don't have a criminal conviction. So, Joe, I have a question for you. This is

something that I a lot of my clients in the staffing industry encounter considering these open

positions are essentially their revenue. Every day that they don't have a person placed,

they're potentially losing that open enrollment. Now, if they do need to have somebody in place,

and they decide to decide against the specific candidate and they fill the role of another applicant.

Can they then replace that other applicant once their background is cleared up and they

only go through the adverse action process, show that it wasn't in fact them. They can now use

that same record, that same report, same consent form, everything, everything to be placed in

another location. I mean, in terms of them getting a job somewhere else, yes. Now, again,

giving that background puts when the other company does lead to an issue on the disclosure

notation, it would have to say to other companies, not just the one company, but that would be

a perfect example of what a company should do if they needed to place somebody into a job,

again, we don't want anyone to lose revenue, we don't want people to lose salary,

but then the person clears the background check, if they can get them a job somewhere else,

well, fine, it won't be any issue. It's when there is no other job, this doesn't

that often happen if it's staffing, but it happens for other type of companies where,

well, we only had one job for a bookkeeper, I don't have two jobs, so we fill the job.

Well, that person goes in high as a lawyer, and that's a problem because they don't have a

record and they didn't get the job because the company did fill the position, okay, that's helpful.

Thank you for giving that question, Michael, that was actually one that just came in,

so perfect timing. Another question that has come in with the states and different states and

different cities having legislation that needs to be abided by, how do you keep informed of those

changes? Alrighty, well, there's a couple of different ways, number one are the attorneys,

the outside council that we utilize certainly have the area to the ground with the legislation,

having to do it background checks. Number two, our staff, we have a staff of over a dozen individuals,

it's sterling in the legal compliance team, so we obviously were tuned to what's going on with the

different laws. And as was mentioned earlier with the National Association of Professional

Background screen, as we're a very much engaged with our National Organization,

as they are with lobbying obviously against a lot of these laws, so certainly when something

comes down the pike and something does become law with a first to find out from our National

Organization, so those are the methods that that we utilize to make sure our clients are kept

up to date, the information is put on our website, as soon as we find out what's going on,

and your client service rep or account manager also would reach out and inform you that there is

something that, as I said, coming down the pike in terms of a law regarding background checks.

And I also skip the slide here as we were getting ready to answer questions. I put a few of the

covers of our onepagers and some of our white papers that we do. If you go to sterlinghouseolutions.com,

you can find in our resources tab. We have not only links to upcoming webinars that we host,

and again, we have the same impression that a tricom does in the insider webinars. We try to give

our clients the same type of insight and tapping in the industry. We also have white papers that can

be downloaded and some onepagers that can be shared within your organization, within your industry.

So feel free to go ahead and check out the website or reach out to myself for more specific

information and we can work to get that creative for you to help save better educated.

Wonderful. I have one other question that's come in, and this is the last one I haven't

asked anyone to help any other questions, so please go ahead and enter them now if you do.

What is the salary restriction law in Massachusetts? That's something that actually this law

doesn't take effect until July of 2018, but just to be prepared because this is another law that

we're going to find other cities and states who's me copying. So in Massachusetts, if you're a

job applicant, you no longer have to answer questions about your previous salary. So if you're an

employer, you no longer can ask that question on the original job application. And also companies

have laws regarding or have the rules regarding not discussing salary. That also will be illegal.

So employees, co-workers can talk to each other about their salaries and have no fear of

retribution by their employer. So again, eliminating the salary question on applications is

will be the next hot topic I would predict this year and next year.

Oh, very ends of the question now. That's just Massachusetts at this point, but I think New York

City has a pending law regarding this, but we try not to talk too much about pending legislation

because many times these laws never get signed and never pass, but knowing the wonderful mayor here in

New York, I would suspect he will sign that if it hits his desk. So again, we will make sure everyone

knows about that well ahead of time. Okay, I've also gone ahead and opened up a poll. So if you'd

be so kind as to give us your feedback on today's webinar, I've also placed our contact information

up on the screen. Please feel free to reach out directly to either my or Joe or myself if you

have any further questions. I know a few people have asked for copies of the PowerPoint presentation.

I will be able to make that available to you after the session today. Anyone else is interested,

please just let me know. And then we'll go ahead and wrap things up. Again, thank you very much for

your participation and Mike and Joe for sharing your knowledge about FCRA compliance. We will have a

recording of this presentation available on our website at tricom.com. Under the resources tab in

the industry insider webinar section, thank you again for your participation and watch for information

on our next webinar session. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks everyone. Bye bye.