Q:  Why should our company use APSCREEN? 

A:  APSCREEN is the oldest, continuously operated Factual Employment Screening firm in the U.S. 

Since 1980, APSCREEN has provided consultation, education and employment screening to thousands of large, medium and small firms.

Our Founder, Thomas C. Lawson has been referred to as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the topic of Factual Employment Screening, and is presently the Country’s most recognized expert witness on matters of Improper Employment Screening, and Fair Credit Reporting Act compliance. (Source – The Complete Workplace Violence Prevention Reporter, Gaming and Wagering Business, Public Personnel Management)

Our firm is a 26-year-old company in a ten-year-old industry.

Why wouldn’t your company use APSCREEN? 

Q:  How do you conduct your Criminal research?

A:  Since 1980, APSCREEN has provided Criminal searches on only one basis – hand-searched records at the applicable jurisdiction(s) of pertinence to the residence history of the subject.

 APSCREEN does not use database criminal checks, nor do we subscribe to the term “on-site” searches, since “on-site” is an industry term, and not a true representation of the search you will get.  Only hand searches at the applicable jurisdiction will reveal the true history of a subject’s criminal convictions in a particular jurisdiction.

Additionally, APSCREEN chooses to search all applicable Court levels in the jurisdiction, ensuring a complete report of a subject’s conviction history, whether or not the subject has been convicted of a misdemeanor, felony, or federal crime.

Q:  How does APSCREEN know where to look for criminal convictions?

A:  Good question!  APSCREEN conducts an extensive, thorough multi-step Candidate Identification Process in order to fully and thoroughly identify the candidate’s name, prior address history, aliases, and so on.  This ID process is conducted in conjunction with proprietary forms provided to our clients who initiate the ID process. APSCREEN’s process is to eliminate candidacy during the application process in order to provide the employer with a retaliation-proof method of screening out undesirable candidates because of the omission of material information pertaining to their identity.

Instead of using a simple social security trace, as most of our competitors use, APSCREEN has compiled a proprietary assemblage of no less than nine identification products (at a minimum) in order to thoroughly identify the candidate.  It is no wonder that APSCREEN discovers omitted information on approximately 60% of the applications processed on a daily basis.

Q:  Is APSCREEN compliant with all applicable Privacy statutes?

A:  APSCREEN is not only compliant with the FACTA, FCRA; CCRRA, and G-L-B, but has extensive published works on the topic.  Our Founder, Tom Lawson regularly speaks writes articles and gives expert witness testimony on the topic.

APSCREEN not only provides it’s clients with state-of-the art forms and procedures designed to screen prospective employees, but is well known in the Consumer Reporting Industry as being on the cutting edge of forward-compliance, a concept foreign to it’s competitors.  APSCREEN was getting signed consents from its clients before most employment screening firms were in business.  We set the standard, and that is why we continue to get re-certified.

Q:  Why does APSCREEN take such a strong stand against delivery of its Consumer Reports over the public Internet?

A:  Years ago, when the Internet was just becoming known as a possible delivery method for the credit reporting and information industries, APSCREEN commissioned a study to determine it’s viability in securing confidential and proprietary information, which could be conveyed in this new and exciting environment.

After extensive and exhaustive research, APSCREEN determined that while the Internet was seductive and provided a tremendous potential for not only the delivery of information, but also as an interactive advertising medium, it lacked the key security features needed to ensure confidential delivery of private, Consumer information.

Simply put, and converse to the nay Sayers, the problem lies not in either end of the information chain, but in the middle, where the information is “handed-off” to many data “trunks” which, are, by their nature, the very core of what makes up the Internet.  It is in these “hand-off” instances where the potential for compromise of information security exists.

We have recently reviewed the IRSG and credit-reporting industry’s recommended Internet-Security firewall provider “TRU-SECURE” and were not satisfied with the level of security it provides at the $15,000 per year level (required), and have, once again elected to avoid this delivery medium until we can be convinced that the private, confidential and protected Consumer information we deal in is safe from prying eyes, hands, and computer hackers.

The icing on the cake is the expert-witness case we have been recently retained to testify in which concerns a Florida-based employment screening firm which conveyed Consumer Reports to an end-user which was intercepted, and from which the interception resulted in identity theft from no less than two unwitting job applicants.  To date, the known losses exceed $200,000, with no end in sight.

Just so you know, both the employment screener, and the end-user have at this time been deemed fully culpable as co-conspirators by the Florida Court.

Q:  OK, APSCREEN, then why do most of the new purveyors deal on the Internet, and if it is so bad, why do they seem to be getting the lion’s share of the employment screening business?

A:  First of all, we are not convinced that the Internet is the primary basis for the lion’s share of the employment screening business.

Secondly, we cannot speak to our competition’s willingness to take risks with Consumer information, and their client’s liability concerning the fastest growing crime in U.S. history (Identity theft).

We are only saying that, APSCREEN is not convinced that the public Internet is a secure delivery medium, so we choose not to deliver our reports over it, or receive confidential consumer identity information through it.  Believe us when we tell you that we want to, but we will not sacrifice our client’s exposure, and a Consumer’s privacy in order to be “competitive”, especially when our chosen delivery method, fax-in/fax-back is so effective, and provides levels of compliance, which the Internet simply cannot match.

Do you think we’re crazy?  Do you think we don’t want to use the Web?  OF COURSE WE DO, WE JUST DON’T THINK IT IS SECURE YET, SO WE SIMPLY USE IT AS AN ADVERTISING TOOL.

We are constantly studying the problem, and when we believe that the Internet is secure, you’ll see the neatest interactive employment screening website on the planet!

Q:  Why is APSCREEN seemingly more costly than it’s competitors?

A:  APSCREEN is actually about one-half of the price of our nearest LEGITIMATE competitors’ “apples-to-apples” product, which makes us the least expensive game in town.

In truth, the employment screening business is filled with mystery, which we will dispel right now.

First, there are two kinds of screening firms:

1.  Marketing firms          97%
2.  True Employment Screeners 3%

Marketing firms are usually found in the low end of the price spectrum, between $18 to $40 for everything under the Sun. The term “index dates” are foreign to them. 

True employment screeners are firms, which tell the truth about what you are getting in very simple terms, and charge accordingly.

There is a big disparity in these two industries, and be careful, because the marketing firms are interested in only two things YOUR MONEY, and CHEAP INFORMATION.

If you really analyze an employment screening report, you will see that it is made up of modules of information, which, when compiled properly give a clear view into the way in which a person conducts his or her life outside of the workplace.

This “view” is important, because think tanks like the Rand Corporation, and Stanford Research Institute have confirmed through numerous studies “…that people behave on the job, mostly in the way they behave off of the job, once they have settled in…” (Rand, 1982, SRI, 1987).

This, of course, forms much of the basis for the need for employment screening, along with the perceived need by an employer to curtail possible negligent hiring by creating a safe workplace, ultimately by hiring non-criminals.

This is not rocket science.  An employer must know the candidate’s identity, his or her financial attitudes. Driving habits, and criminal history, as well as whether or not he or she has been truthful in the presentation of prior employment and education information.

Worker’s Compensation records are a foolish endeavor because they are neither complete, accurate, or a true indication of a person’s veracity as to a claim, not to mention, the only Worker’s Compensation information available in the public records are appeals not the claim history, so what do you really get upon which you will base your decision? – JUNK! 

So with this knowledge, how do you determine good screening versus bad screening? 

Well, first you need to know just how thoroughly the firm will identify the candidate.  Like one credit report, one or two social security traces cannot tell the whole story.

Next, why would you only want one employment credit report, when government agencies like the Federal Home Loan Board requires reports from all three credit bureaus before it makes a decision to loan money on a secured mortgage?  The only reason they cite in their regulations is because ONE CREDIT REPORT DOES NOT TELL THE COMPLETE FINANCIAL STORY.

Of course, a driving history is important, not only because of possible DUIs and other heinous driving acts, but what about a candidate having a suspended or revoked license?  How will he or she get to work?  Will they drive their car, and get into an accident on company time, and be later determined by Plaintiff’s Counsel to be an Agent of the Company?

And Criminal.  How can you be sure that the candidate has no conviction history if you don’t go to the absolute source of the records, the Clerk of the applicable Court?  Few are aware that database criminal checks are purveyed at the wholesale level and are not designed to be anything more than a lead generator, not a decisional tool.  Why do you think they are so inexpensive?  BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT GETTING THE WHOLE STORY! 

Employment and Education verifications are predictable, and not complicated.  Either you get the information, or you don’t, so this is not a gauge of a competent screener, and with the limitations placed upon verification departments these days, it’s a wonder anything is conveyed.

Q:  Why are there so many employment-screening firms out there, I saw over 20+ vendors at the last SHRM conference?

A:  Why not?  It’s an easy business to get into and it is profitable.  In fact, a person can be in the employment screening business in their living room, since just about everything they will need to resell to you is available to them over the Internet, or several “on-line” type of information (database) purveyors.  Problem is, you never know where the information is really coming from, do you? 

Q:  OK, how do I know where APSCREEN gets its information?

A:  Simple.  As a member of many national and worldwide professional research and investigative organizations, APSCREEN is readily accountable, and is known to conduct research not only by it’s clients, but also by it’s sources, located at every Court in the land.  As Charter members of the Public Record Provider Network, and long standing members of the National Public Record Research Association, we are in the Courts, daily searching other records, so criminal records are a natural for us to research.  We also research criminal records for other firms who don’t want to, or don’t have the resources to search them themselves.  For us, research is easier than compilation, so we elect to research, not compile.

Also, since no database compilation is ever 100% complete, when migrated into a centralized data format, we only see problems with databases, because, anything less than 100%  is incomplete, which results in an incompetent search.

Additionally, APSCREEN, as a Bureau-Certified Consumer Reporting Agency has direct relationships with all 50 state’s Motor Vehicle Departments, and all three major credit bureaus, as well as over 900 other repository-based providers for identity reports, and other information types such as UCC searches, litigation histories, etc.

Well known Labor Lawyer Lee Paterson once told our Founder: “Your best selling point, Tom, is to tell your prospective customers that you’ve never been sued” 

Q:  How can APSCREEN provide such a high level of quality, at admittedly, half of the price of its nearest competitor? 

A:  Buying power.  We buy Credit reports at sometimes one-third of the market rate because we are a licensed credit bureau, and because we have been buying these reports for 26 years. 

We also buy our driving histories at a fraction of our competitors, and when buying criminal records, we only use fellow PRRN, or NPRRA research firms which all discount to each other because we are an Industry Cooperative.

We also establish a national norm for pricing, which affords the customer an anticipated cost for all of their reports, rather than an unpredictable cost structure, which is hard to budget for.  Simply put, this means that we have an average price for criminal checks, which could be high in some areas, and low in other areas.  This means that the customer benefits from average pricing, rather than area-sensitive pricing.   When you have thousands of clients in all parts of the Country, the offsets exist for available profit for us, no matter where we do the research.  A big client base benefits all of the clients, equally.

Q:  How about Customer Service?  Do you pamper your customers, or treat them like Sheep, with low-paid telephone clerks.

A:  We let our customers answer that question, just ask us for a reference!