Firstly, hiring instutions must comply with the FCRA Fair credit report act, which protects candidates from this situation.  Should a candidate not be hired due to negative information on the background check, he must receive a letter stating this, and should be entitled to a copy of the background check.  The article doesn’t mention what sort of negative information was listed in the report, so let’s discuss criminal records.  All good background check court researchers follow a list of matching procedures to assure the degree of accurary with criminal court matches. Usually the minimum match is a full first and last name and date of birth match, but it can also include social security number, address and middle name matches.  Anything less, such as a name only match, should be indicated on the report.  Occassionally there are very common names, like John Smith, that happen to have the same date of birth as your candidate, so further verification via ssn, address history, and middle name can be very important.  All of this should be discussed with your hiring instution when any negative information is returned.  

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