Employment screening · FloridaA background check error cost you the job. Federal law gave you the chance to fix it first.

Last reviewed October 8, 2026 by Jackson McMillan, Florida attorney

Short answer: You may have two claims. Before an employer pulls an offer because of a background report, federal law requires it to give you a copy of the report and a summary of your rights, so you can point out errors first. That duty can be enforced in court. The screening company that produced the wrong record must also use reasonable accuracy procedures and reinvestigate your dispute.

Why does my background check show a record that isn't mine?

Because criminal and court records are usually matched to applicants by name and date of birth, not by Social Security number. Court files rarely carry one. When a screening company's matching rules are loose, a stranger's conviction lands on your report, and when its databases are stale, a case that was dismissed or sealed is still reported as if it were open.

The mistakes that cost people job offers tend to fall into a short list:

• Another person's criminal record, often someone with the same first and last name and a different middle name or birth year.
• A dismissed charge shown as pending or as a conviction. The report copied the filing and never caught the outcome.
• A sealed or expunged case that a court closed before the report was prepared.
• A misdemeanor listed as a felony, or the original charge listed instead of the reduced one you actually pleaded to.
• One case counted several times because each count or each hearing became its own entry.
• Arrests and non-conviction records older than seven years, which generally cannot be reported for most jobs.

What did the employer have to do before pulling the offer?

Two things, at two different moments. Before ordering the report, the employer had to tell you in a stand-alone document and get your written permission. Before acting on the report, it had to give you a copy of the report and a summary of your FCRA rights, with a reasonable chance to respond. Both steps are in 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(b).

Before the check: a stand-alone disclosure and your written authorization

An employer may not get a consumer report for employment purposes unless it first gives you a clear and conspicuous written disclosure, in a document that consists solely of that disclosure, that a report may be obtained, and you authorize it in writing (§ 1681b(b)(2)(A)). The authorization can be on the same page as the disclosure, but nothing else can be. A violation is privately enforceable, though courts have often required real harm before letting a claim about the form alone go forward.

Before the decision: a copy of the report and a summary of your rights

Before taking any adverse action based in whole or in part on a consumer report, the employer must provide you a copy of the report and the summary of consumer rights published by the CFPB (§ 1681b(b)(3)(A)). The statute sets no fixed waiting period, but the wait must be reasonable; Federal Trade Commission staff once suggested about five business days, and courts have varied. The point of the "pre-adverse action" notice is to give you a real chance to show that the record is wrong before the decision is final. A screening company can send the notice on the employer's behalf.

After the decision, the employer owes a second notice, the adverse action notice, naming the screening company and telling you about your right to a free copy within 60 days and your right to dispute (§ 1681m(a)). The difference matters: the pre-adverse action requirement can be enforced by a private lawsuit, while the post-decision notice generally cannot, because most courts, including a federal court in Florida, hold that § 1681m(h)(8) leaves that duty to government enforcement. If the employer skipped the pre-adverse step and went straight to a rejection, that is the violation worth examining.

What are the extra rules for criminal records on an employment report?

When a screening company reports public record information for employment purposes that is likely to hurt your chances, it must either notify you at the time it sends the report to the employer, or maintain strict procedures to make sure the information is complete and up to date (§ 1681k(a)). "Up to date" is the rule a dismissed charge reported as pending runs into.

The FCRA's time limits also apply. Arrest records, civil suits, and judgments generally cannot be reported after seven years, and the law's catchall bars any other adverse item older than seven years, with one exception: criminal convictions have no federal time limit (§ 1681c(a)). A dismissed charge or acquittal falls under the catchall and runs seven years from the original charge. Those limits do not apply to a job expected to pay $75,000 a year or more (§ 1681c(b)(3)), so the salary of the lost position matters.

No sentence in the statute says "never report a sealed record." The theory in those cases is that reporting a case a court has closed, or omitting the disposition, is an inaccuracy or the product of unreasonable procedures under § 1681e(b) and, for employment reports, § 1681k, and courts have allowed such claims to proceed. The CFPB's 2024 advisory opinion on background screening was withdrawn in May 2025, so a case today rests on the statute and the decisions applying it.

What can I do between the pre-adverse notice and the final decision?

Act the same day. Read every line of the report, tell the employer in writing which entries are wrong and that you are disputing them, pull the court record that proves it, and file a dispute with the screening company. A short, documented response within the window is what keeps an offer alive, and it also builds the record if the employer refuses to wait.

1. Write to the employer today. Identify the wrong entries by case number, say the record is not yours or is reported incorrectly, state that you have disputed it, and ask the employer to hold its decision until the dispute is resolved. Email is fine; keep a copy.
2. Get the court record. The clerk's docket or a certified copy showing the dismissal, the real defendant's name and birth date, the actual charge, or the sealing order.
3. Dispute with the screening company in writing. Attach the court record and a copy of your ID. The company has 30 days, but the law lets it delete an item within three business days without a full reinvestigation (§ 1681i(a)(8)); ask for that up front and explain that a job offer is waiting.
4. Send the employer the proof too; it may act on the court record before the screening company updates the report.
5. Keep everything: the pre-adverse letter and its date, the report, your emails, the employer's replies, the dispute, and the final decision. The gap between the letter and the rejection is a fact a court will weigh.

If the offer is already gone, these steps still matter: a corrected report protects the next application, and the dispute file is the evidence in any claim.

How do I dispute with Checkr, HireRight, First Advantage, or Sterling?

Each company publishes its own channels and describes itself as a consumer reporting agency under the FCRA. Use a written channel where you can, keep proof of what you sent and when, and remember that the statute, not the company's page, sets the 30-day deadline. The details below come from each company's pages and the CFPB's 2025 list.

If your report came from Checkr. Checkr, Inc., based in San Francisco, maintains a Candidate Portal where you can download a completed report and, per its help center, select "File a dispute" at the bottom of the report and attach documents; disputes can also be mailed to Checkr, Inc., 1 Montgomery St., Suite 2400, San Francisco, CA 94104. The CFPB's list gives Checkr's phone as 844-824-3257 and says Checkr provides a free report on request if one of its clients previously ordered one on you. One caution: Checkr's Terms of Service (effective July 7, 2026), which the portal links to, contain an arbitration agreement and class action waiver with a 30-day written opt-out, so read Section 13 before accepting anything.

If your report came from HireRight. HireRight, headquartered in Nashville, says you may dispute for free online, by phone at 866-521-6995 (Monday to Friday, 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central), by fax, or by mail to HireRight, Attn: Applicant Care Team, 14002 E. 21st Street, Suite 1200, Tulsa, OK 74134, and that a dispute may take up to 30 days, or 45 in limited circumstances. It also says you can request a copy of your report and a list of the customers who received it in the last two years.

If your report came from First Advantage. First Advantage Corporation, headquartered in Atlanta, says you can request one free copy of your report every 12 months (more often within 60 days after an adverse action) and can dispute by phone at 800-845-6004, by email to consumer.documents@fadv.com, by fax, or by mail to First Advantage Consumer Center, P.O. Box 105292, Atlanta, GA 30348-5292, with reinvestigations generally completed within 30 days of receipt. Its published website terms contain no arbitration clause.

If your report came from Sterling. Sterling has been a wholly owned subsidiary of First Advantage since October 31, 2024; its candidate site says disputes are handled by First Advantage at 844-468-6522 or Dispute.Resolution@FADV.com. The CFPB's list says Sterling provides one free report every 12 months on request if it has a file on you, at 888-889-5248 or Sterling, Attn: Consumer Reports, 6150 Oak Tree Boulevard, Suite 490, Independence, OH 44131. In November 2019, Sterling Infosystems, Inc. (doing business as Sterling) agreed to a stipulated final judgment with the CFPB in federal court in New York resolving allegations about accuracy procedures, public-record reporting, and outdated information; it required $6 million in redress for about 7,100 applicants who had disputed criminal records found not to belong to them and a $2.5 million civil penalty, and Sterling neither admitted nor denied the allegations. The CFPB lists the matter as post-order.

McMillan Law PLLC is not affiliated with any of these companies; they are named because applicants search for help with their reports.

What do Florida courts say about employment background check errors?

The federal appeals court that covers Florida decided a case in 2020 in which a screening company's name and birth date matching put another person's Florida criminal records on a job applicant's reports, and it upheld the jury's finding that the violation was willful. Florida courts, state and federal, also require a concrete injury, and a report sent to an employer that cost you a job is one.

That 2020 decision, Williams v. First Advantage, arose in the Northern District of Florida. The applicant lived in Chiefland; the records were from Broward County and belonged to a different man with a similar name. The court affirmed the compensatory damages and the willfulness finding and reduced the punitive award. The lesson: a match on name plus date of birth is not the end of the inquiry, and a company that keeps using a method it knows produces wrong-person results risks a willfulness finding.

On standing, the Supreme Court's 2021 decision in TransUnion v. Ramirez requires a concrete harm, and a Florida appeals court held in 2023 that Florida state courts do too. A wrong report delivered to an employer, followed by a lost offer, is the kind of harm those courts accept. A disclosure form with extra language, with no job lost and no report sent anywhere, often is not.

My only office is in Tampa, and applicants from any part of Florida can send me their file. The evidence in these cases is paper: the report, the notices, the court docket, and your emails with the employer.

What is a background check error case worth?

For a negligent violation, the FCRA allows your actual losses plus reasonable attorney's fees and costs. For a willful one, it allows actual losses or statutory damages of $100 to $1,000, plus punitive damages, fees, and costs. For a lost job, actual losses can include the pay you would have earned, the time out of work, and the distress of being treated as a criminal.

The remedies are in 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681n and 1681o. Willfulness includes reckless disregard, and each failure to comply counts separately, so a screening company that reported a wrong-person record and then mishandled your dispute may face more than one violation. The employer that skipped the pre-adverse notice is a separate defendant. Courts read actual damages to include lost income, out-of-pocket costs, and emotional harm such as humiliation when you can tie them to the violation; a Florida federal court has allowed a consumer's own testimony to support emotional distress damages.

Because the statute shifts fees to the defendant when the consumer wins, a case does not have to involve a six-figure salary to be worth bringing. You don't pay me unless you win. I take these cases on contingency: no attorney's fees and no case costs owed to me unless you recover money. If a case is lost, a court can sometimes order the losing side to pay the other side's court costs, and some Florida laws, including the security deposit and deceptive practices statutes, also let the winner recover attorney's fees from the loser. I explain that risk before anything is filed, and every term is in a written agreement before you sign. The FCRA also allows fees against a consumer who files in bad faith, so I review the report, the notices, and the court record before recommending a lawsuit.

What are the deadlines?

The window between the pre-adverse letter and the final decision is measured in days, and the law gives no exact number, so respond to it immediately. The deadline to sue is two years from when you discovered the violation, and never more than five years from the violation itself (§ 1681p).

• The pre-adverse window: a "reasonable" period, often treated as several business days. Answer in writing the day you receive the letter.
• 60 days after an adverse action notice to request the free report from the screening company it names (§ 1681j(b)).
• 30 days for the screening company's reinvestigation, with up to 15 more only if you add relevant information during the first 30, then written results within 5 business days (§ 1681i(a)).
• 15 days for the company to describe how it reinvestigated, once you ask (§ 1681i(a)(7)).
• 2 years from discovery to sue, with a 5-year outer limit. For a claim about the disclosure or the pre-adverse notice, discovery is usually when you learned the employer had the report and what it said. A mishandled dispute can start its own clock. Act within two years of the lost offer.

What should I do today?

• Save the notices. The pre-adverse action letter, the summary of rights, the final decision, and the envelope or email headers showing the dates.
• Save every page of the report, including the section showing what identifiers the company used to match the record to you.
• Find the disclosure and authorization you signed, or ask HR for a copy, and note whether it was a separate page or part of the application.
• Get the court record for each wrong entry: the docket, the disposition, the sealing or expunction order, or the real defendant's identifying details.
• Dispute in writing with the screening company and send the employer the same proof. My dispute guide and sample letter can be adapted for an employment report.
• Write down what the job paid and its start date, and keep records of your job search afterward.
• Send it to me. Request a free case review and attach the notices, the report, the authorization form, and the court records. I'll tell you whether the employer and the screening company followed the law and what the claim may be worth.

Sources: Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681b(b)(2)(A), 1681b(b)(3)(A), 1681c(a) and (b)(3), 1681e(b), 1681i(a), 1681i(a)(7), 1681i(a)(8), 1681j(b), 1681k(a), 1681m(a), 1681m(h)(8), 1681n, 1681o, 1681p; Williams v. First Advantage Background Services Corp., No. 17-11447 (11th Cir. Jan. 9, 2020); TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021); Saleh v. Miami Gardens Square One, Inc., 353 So. 3d 1253 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023); Soroka v. Homeowners Loan Corp. (M.D. Fla. June 12, 2006); Admore v. Hospice of Palm Beach County (S.D. Fla. Dec. 13, 2021); Ramones v. Experian Information Solutions (S.D. Fla. Sept. 4, 2021); CFPB v. Sterling Infosystems, Inc., No. 1:19-cv-10824 (S.D.N.Y.), stipulated final judgment and order (Nov. 2019); CFPB, List of Consumer Reporting Companies (2025 edition); CFPB, Interpretive Rules, Policy Statements, and Advisory Opinions; Withdrawal, 90 Fed. Reg. 20084 (May 12, 2025); company consumer pages for Checkr, HireRight, First Advantage, and Sterling as checked October 8, 2026. Last reviewed October 8, 2026.