In today’s hiring environment, verifying an applicant’s identity can be the difference between hiring a career employee and dealing with a devastating lawsuit.

Identity verification should be the first step in your background investigation process, but not all employers do their proper due diligence.

Name-only matching procedures do exist in background checks, and they put your business in jeopardy of a detrimental hire. Let’s dive into the issues with name-only matching, and how you can avoid this practice to protect your business.

What is Name-Only Matching?

According to the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) official advisory opinion, “Name-only matching occurs when a consumer reporting agency uses only first and last name to determine whether a particular item of information relates to a particular consumer, without using other personally identifying information such as address, date of birth, or Social Security number.”

They go on to say “the 2010 US census (the most recent to have last name statistics available) found more than 2.4 million respondents with the last name of Smith, 1.9 million respondents with the last name of Johnson, 1.6 million respondents with the last name of Williams, and more than 1 million respondents each with the last name of Brown, Jones, Garcia, Miller, Davis, Rodriguez, Martinez, or Hernandez.”

And that was the 2010 census!

The quick thinkers among us have likely started to imagine how many ways this can go wrong. As an employer, those statistics prove you will most likely offer a position to someone with one of those last names at some point in your businesses' life.

Without understanding the shortfalls of name-only matching, you put yourself at serious risk of making a poor decision and hurting your operations.

How Common is Your Name?

Let’s consider the scenario of an applicant with a common name like Michael Jones.

If you were to do a criminal search on “Michael Jones” it would pull up the file for every Michael Jones in that jurisdiction or state. 

That’s great, but you’re only interested in the Michael Jones that applied at your business. How do you find the right one?

If you partner with a provider that uses name-only matching, it can be almost impossible.

Not to mention the possibility of name differences. For example, what if Michael Jones was convicted of a crime under the name “Mike”?

If you didn’t run that name in the criminal search, and are using name-only matching, you would never obtain the information and are out to dry with few options to resolve the issue. 

We’ll preface this by saying that both solutions below are a bit outrageous, until the last one.

Solution 1: Run a check on all Michael Jones’ and hope they come back clear.

Obviously, this isn’t going to work. No business has the time or money to spend checking every single Michael Jones, and then go back and check nicknames. 

This admittedly outlandish problem is highlighted in New York, particularly with the NYS Office of Court Administration’s (NYS OCA) state criminal inquiry.  The NYS OCA searches by exact name and date of birth match. There are many problems with this search, but one of the more glaring is its complete inability to find and research alternate spellings, nicknames, or aliases of your applicant’s given name.

If you were to run the name “Michael Jones” through the NYS OCA, you would only receive information matching the name Michael Jones and the date of birth you provided. But what if your Michael was convicted under the name Mike? Or Mickey?

We call the ability for a database to find alternate spellings or nicknames Fuzzy Logic. The NYS OCA does not utilize Fuzzy Logic, so you will not be able to obtain that information without paying for it. Remember, it costs $95.00 plus financing fees per name, so if you’re using name-only matching, we're back to the first sentence in this section.

It would be much easier to find an inquiry that can identify your Michael Jones without breaking the bank.

Solution 2: Pick the first Michael Jones and run with it.

We told you they would be outrageous. This isn’t going to work either, as you will almost certainly get the wrong Michael, and spend money to obtain information you can be sued for seeing without consent.

This is one of the main reasons why it’s important to verify your applicants' identity before performing more searches. Getting the identity confirmed off the bat ensures you aren’t wasting your time and money on the wrong person, and you’re remaining compliant with the CFPB and Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Besides the obvious issues with picking the first name on a list, you can be heavily penalized by both the CFPB and FCRA, while also being sued for viewing federally protected personal information without obtaining consent.

It would be great if there was a way to pinpoint your Michael Jones and quickly verify their identity.

Solution 3: Partner with a Reliable Background Investigation Provider

Finally, the real solution. There is really only one way to avoid the issues of name-only matching. Don’t use it. 

The CFPB feels so strongly about this, that they actually released another Advisory Opinion in November 2021 stating “...a consumer reporting agency that uses inadequate matching procedures to match information to consumers, including name-only matching, in preparing consumer reports is not using reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy under section 607(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.”

The way to stay compliant and obtain all available information is to partner with a professional background check provider. Not just any provider, though.

We mentioned earlier that name-only matching procedures exist, and some consumer reporting agencies use these to try and speed up the process for unique names. It’s a double-edged sword.

To find your perfect provider, you can visit their website, fill out forms to ask questions, read reviews, look at their social media, or look for licenses / credentials that show the level of detail you need.

At Commercial Investigations, we’re a licensed private investigative agency that specializes in employment background checks. Verifying identity is our first step in every single investigation we process, and it all starts with Origin™.

Your Origin™ Story

Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was just one inquiry that could solve all the glaring issues with our top three solutions earlier? 

At CI, we begin all of our background checks with an inquiry called Origin™. It combines social security number (SSN) verification, address verification, and a search of state and county criminal record databases to establish a strong investigative starting point.

It starts by taking your applicant’s Social Security number, and finds all names, aliases, and addresses associated with that number. In the first step, almost instantly, our investigative team knows exactly who we are obtaining information on, so you don’t waste your time and money.

The names are then run through our multi-jurisdictional criminal inquiry, the National Sex Offender Registry, and multiple federal anti-terrorist / no-fly lists.

No other inquiry in the background investigation industry provides such a robust starting point as quickly as Origin™ does. We also set our prices proportional to the rest of your package, so you’re always paying a fair price for the information.

To transform your background investigation process, start your Origin™ story today. You’ll sleep better at night knowing your provider is doing everything they can to obtain all available information, in a compliant manner.