Background check provides false information for Tennessee job-seeker

A man in Tennessee had to prove he wasn’t a criminal, after his background check stated he was. Michael Ray Brown’s background was delved into by Sterling Infosystems, a company used by temporary agency Pro Logistics to check for possible criminal histories of prospective employees. He had applied for a job at Rich Products Corporation and could not understand why no one called him back about the job. “I had applied through the temp to hire company and happened to call the gentleman back when I hadn’t heard anything about the job for a while and he told me that I had failed my background check,” said Brown, who is 34. “I said, no, that can’t be possible because I’ve never been in any kind of trouble.” “What they (Sterling representatives) were telling me was that I had gotten in trouble in Memphis,” Brown said. “I contacted the (Shelby County) court clerk’s office and they said they had a Michael Brown in the system. They checked my social security number and date of birth against the one in their system and it turned out to be an entirely different person — that Michael Brown was born in 1958.” After unsuccessfully trying to resolve this issue with the background screening organization, Brown seeked out assistance with his problem from the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office. Detective Steve Brown ran an “FBI Criminal History” check on Michael Brown and found he had no red marks on his record. With this information, Brown was able to clear his name, but questions how many other people have been denied a job due to false information in a background check.