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HireRight is an employment background screening company. Its reports go to employers making hiring decisions, which makes it a consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and makes you the subject of a file you are entitled to see.
People usually arrive at this problem in the same way: an offer was made, a screening ran, and the offer went quiet or was withdrawn. The window to do something about that is narrower than most candidates realise, and the statute builds one in on purpose.
The Window the Law Gives You
Section 1681b(b)(3)(A) requires that before an employer takes adverse action based in whole or in part on a consumer report, it must provide you with a copy of the report and a written description of your rights under the FCRA.
That is the pre adverse action notice, and its entire purpose is to let you see the report and respond before the decision becomes final. The statute does not set a fixed number of days. It requires the notice before the action, and a notice arriving in the same envelope as the rejection has not given you the opportunity the sequence exists to create.
So the moment that notice arrives, the clock you care about has started. Read the report the day you get it.
What Should Have Happened Before the Report Existed
There is an earlier requirement worth checking, because it does not depend on the report being wrong.
Under § 1681b(b)(2)(A), an employer may not obtain a consumer report for employment purposes unless it has made a clear and conspicuous written disclosure in a document that consists solely of the disclosure, and you have authorised it in writing.
That phrase, a document that consists solely of the disclosure, is doing real work. A disclosure buried in an application packet, or printed above a liability release, is a recurring failure. If that is what you signed, the problem exists whether or not the report that came back was accurate.
Keep the application materials. People throw them away, and they are the evidence.
The Errors That Actually Appear
Employment screening reports go wrong in a small number of recognisable ways.
A record belonging to someone else, matched on a name. Courts publish little beyond names, so a common name or a close variant pulls a stranger's file. Certified court records showing the other person's identifiers are what resolve it.
A record of yours reported without its outcome. A dismissal shown as pending, a charge that was reduced reported as originally filed, an expungement that never propagated. Section 1681k(a) addresses this directly: an agency furnishing public record information for employment purposes must either notify you when it reports that information or maintain strict procedures keeping it complete and up to date, with arrests, indictments and convictions up to date only if current public record status is reported.
Employment and education verification errors. Dates that do not match, a title recorded wrong, a school that reports a non match because of a name change. These are quieter than a criminal record and they end candidacies just as effectively.
An item too old to report. Non convictions are capped at seven years under § 1681c(a)(2) and (a)(5). Convictions are not: § 1681c(a)(5) excludes records of convictions from the cutoff, so they carry no federal time limit, though some states impose their own.
Disputing It
Request your file. You are entitled to it, and the adverse action notice identifies the agency and how to reach it.
Dispute in writing and send it certified mail with return receipt requested. Every screening company offers a portal, and a portal leaves you with no proof of what you sent or when it arrived. The reinvestigation deadline runs from receipt, so that receipt is the only thing that fixes the date. Use the portal in addition if you want speed; do not use it instead.
Be specific and attach the document that proves the point: the certified disposition, the payroll record, the diploma or transcript. Say what each enclosure shows.
Ask for the identifiers to be corrected as well as the item removed, or a name based match can recur on the next search.
Tell the employer in writing that the report is disputed. That letter establishes what the employer knew and when, which is a different question from whether the report was accurate.
The Deadlines and the Follow Up
The reinvestigation must generally be completed within 30 days of receipt, extending to 45 days if you provide additional relevant information during that period.
If it comes back verified and the record is still wrong, request the description of the procedure used, under § 1681i(a)(6) and (a)(7). The agency must provide it within 15 days of your request. That description is the agency's own account of what it did, and a verification that never looked at a certified court record is difficult to defend as reasonable under § 1681e(b).
Verification Errors Are Quieter and Just as Damaging
Criminal records get the attention, but employment and education verification failures end as many candidacies, and they are easier to fix because the proof is usually in your own files.
Employment dates that do not match. A previous employer's HR system reports a different start or end month than your record shows, or reports through a third party database that holds stale data. The resolution is a payroll record, a W-2, or a letter from the employer.
A title or salary recorded wrong, where the screening company reports what a database holds rather than what the employer would confirm.
An education non match. A degree verifies as not found because the school holds a maiden name, a different spelling, or a different graduation year than the one submitted. A transcript or a letter from the registrar resolves it.
A prior employer that no longer exists and cannot be reached, reported as unverifiable, which some employers read as a discrepancy rather than an absence of data.
If the Job Is Already Gone
Many people reach this point after the role has been filled, and the first question is whether there is any point continuing.
There is, for two reasons. The report does not disappear when the application does. It stays in the agency's file and can surface on the next search, which means an uncorrected error costs you the next job as well as this one. Correcting it now is the cheapest it will ever be.
And the obligations that were owed to you do not expire because the position closed. Whether the disclosure met the standalone document requirement in § 1681b(b)(2)(A), whether you received the report and rights summary before the decision under § 1681b(b)(3)(A), and whether the agency followed reasonable procedures under § 1681e(b), are all answered by what already happened.
Keep the application materials, the notices with their envelopes and dates, the report, and your correspondence.
Common Questions
Is HireRight regulated by the FCRA?
Yes. It assembles information about consumers and furnishes reports to employers for hiring decisions, which makes it a consumer reporting agency with accuracy, reinvestigation and disclosure duties.
How long does HireRight have to investigate a dispute?
Generally 30 days from receiving your dispute, extending to 45 days if you supply additional relevant information during that period.
What is a pre-adverse action notice?
Notice an employer must give before taking adverse action based on a consumer report, including a copy of the report and a written description of your FCRA rights, under § 1681b(b)(3)(A).
The employer rejected me without sending the report first. Is that a violation?
Failing to provide the report and rights summary before adverse action is a failure of a specific statutory duty, independent of whether the report was accurate. Keep the rejection and any notices, with dates.
Can I still get the job if the report is corrected?
Correcting the report and notifying the employer is the first step, and whether the role is restored is the employer's decision. The FCRA question about how the report was obtained and used is separate from the hiring outcome.
How far back can an employment background check go?
Should I dispute with HireRight or with the employer?
With HireRight, in writing, because that is what triggers the reinvestigation. Tell the employer separately and in writing that the report is disputed, so there is a record of what it knew.