Talk about a great way to phish any unsuspecting saps who might try out the service.<p>Also, I'm vaguely horrified at the notion that background checks might become standard even for 'sharing economy' gigs. Ah, well, you see, your pot charge disqualifies you from picking up my laundry.
My friend and I hacked an API to run background checks. We wanted to show it to the HN community and get your feedback on it. You can run 1 background check on yourself for free.
Previous address history was pretty rough (it listed the same address twice as consecutive residences, put me in a city I'd never lived in, and got most of the dates wrong).<p>That being said, I'm into it. Those arguing about it's usefulness seem either oblivious to, or annoyed by, the vast number of background checks that are run in this country every day.
I prefer the reverse of this - [1]Repp. You confirm your own background and provide it to companies.<p>[1] <a href="https://myrepp.com/" rel="nofollow">https://myrepp.com/</a>
The fear of the SSN input in the comments is interesting. That was my knee-jerk reaction as well.<p>I'm not saying the fear is unwarranted, but do you know where your employer is inputting your SSN and where they keep it? How safe do you think your personal data is?<p>I built an employment application 'web app' for a job not too long ago. It was <i>terrible</i>, and against all my objections, we ended up asking for the applicants SSN. It certainly wasn't secure by any stretch of the imagination, and I cringe a little every time I see an application come in. I'm sure this sort of thing happens daily.<p>Anyway, I went ahead and put my SSN in to Checkr. It came up with an address I've never lived at, next to 3 addresses I actually have lived at. Not sure what that's about.
Like someone else pointed out, it would be ideal to be able to delete reports (or at a minimum ssn information).<p>The site looks nice and clean. After running a report on myself, I noticed it said for a minute or so that my ssn was incorrect before it changed to stating it was cleared.<p>Also, while the national check for me came back clear (as expected), I was curious if that was literally all the report said. I would love to see more detailed reporting underlying the results. Obviously if it doesn't say anything more than "clear" or "no results" or something, then this probably wouldn't be useful.<p>Pricing-wise, I think it is somewhat fair and were I a bigger company with an HR group, you would be a solid candidate as a vendor.
Also, why does the GitHub login require full access to personal user data?<p>"This application will be able to read and write all user data. This includes the following:
Private email addresses
Profile information
Followers"
This is a genuinely hard problem and it's great to see new companies taking it on. Unfortunately this particular instance is close to useless - US only is a non starter, it's why this stuff is hard in the first place.<p>Dealing with country-specific services is as good as aggregating relevant databases directly.<p>I'd pay good money for a single API that covered most of the western world, and seamlessly integrated external services (e.g. Equifax in the UK)
I just ran one on myself. Turnaround time was 2 hours. It came up with a ticket I got in 2009 for "Motor Vehicle Noise". I've had several speeding tickets that didn't show up, so not sure how much I would trust the data from this.
I filed a report earlier this morning on myself with an incorrect SSN (off by one digit). It came through with a 'clear' on SSN verification and background check, but reported incorrect addresses. I think you guys should look into this.
Interesting idea, but like the others I have to say there is no way I am entering my SSN into your site. I'm half convinced the fear is irrational, but there it is.