[ Microfax - The FAQ's ]

+ What do I need to conduct a background check?

Have your applicant fill out and sign an authorization form. Either fax the form to Microfax or enter the request at our website.

+ Do you need a person's date of birth?

Yes, as most criminal searches are searched by name and date of birth.

+ Do I need a person's authorization to conduct a background check?

If you are an employer, federal law states that you must obtain prior authorization before conducting a background check. In addition, you must keep the authorization on file for a period of three years.

+ What is the difference between the various criminal search types?

County Criminal searches are conducted by sending a court runner to the court house to pull records from the county clerks office. County courts are generally the most up to date records available. Typical turnaround time is 2 days for clear records.
Statewide criminal searches are conducted by searching state-based criminal records indexes. Statewide records may or may not contain the outcome of an arrest. Statewide records can be as much as 90 days old or greater.
Federal records searches are conducted by searching federal-based records indexes. Federal records may contain limited case information. Federal records can be 90 days old or greater.

National criminal records are conducted by searching a large records index. National criminal records searches do not include every jurisdiction and may be limited in case information.

+ What is your turnaround for complete reports?

We generally advise our clients that turnaround times vary between 48 - 72 hours, depending on the nature of the search being conducted and the availability of resources, i.e. previous employers, educational institution response, etc

+ What information do you need to conduct the checks?

In order to expedite the process, we would like to have all of the below-listed information.

Date of birth
Social Security Number

Copy of application

+ Can you provide DOT driving records?

Yes. We currently provide DOT-compliant DMV records to several corporations.

+ What information do you get on employment checks?

We ask the following questions on employment verifications:

Dates of employment
Title
Ending Pay
Duties
Reason for Leaving

Eligible for Rehire

Customer Service

+ Do you dedicate employees to clients or do all of your agents handle reference requests based on workflow?

All requests are handled on a workflow basis.

Billing

+ Can I pay by credit card?

Yes. We now accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

+ How am I billed?

Microfax bills clients at the monthly. Clients are provided with a monthly invoice.

+ What is contained on the invoice?

The invoice is grouped by name and provides details of each search conducted for that person.

+ Can you handle multiple locations with separate billing?

We have the capability to bill our multi-location clients at the location level or by providing a master invoice subtotaled by location.

+ What additional fees can I expect?

Fees generally fall in to three categories and are passed directly through without markup. They include, but are not limited to the following:

County court fees - some counties in the U.S. charge an access fee.
Court fees / not County court fees
The fee currently ranges from $2 - $18. Court fees are charge per name, per look up. On average fees will add between 3% - 5% to the overall cost of a background check.
Education Verification fees - some universities outsource education to independent companies, who charge a fee to conduct the verification.

+ Do you charge a premium for any locations?

The following fees are passed along to our clients:

Out of country searches incur additional charges.
Some counties incur additional court fees
State DMV fees

Compliance

+ Are you Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant?

Microfax is fully compliant with the Fair Credit Reporting Act and is regularly reviewed for compliance to state and federal regulations.

Technical

+Do you do on-line processing?

We offer a fully-functional on-line order and retrieval system that enables our clients to place orders and retrieve through a secure web browser. The system is designed to help even the most inexperienced user to quickly order background reports

+Do you provide instant results?

Many search types are instant and available within minutes of ordering, including DMV, SSN and Credit Reports.