Sterling, A First Advantage CompanyReviews of sterlingcheck.com

Slow with no idea how long it will take to get your records back. I could use a generic test and have my information back in 30 minutes compared to the 2 weeks they had. My employer keeps pushing back my hire date because there is no sight of when they will receive my information. Hopefully I never have to use them again

My perspective: EU national with a clean record, truthful educational and employment history applying for a Company I highly respect based in the UK. As I needed to sort other details (VISA, stop my business, etc) in a short period before starting with the new (potential) job, I was reassured by the fact this process would have taken only 3 to 5 working days, as stated in the application form to Sterling. I could not have been more wrong: there is no way of knowing when you'll have your report (mine is still pending). In hindsight I would have planned things differently. WHAT TO EXPECT --------------------- Or, "qui custodiet ipsos custodes": they are making background checks on people, but has someone ever audited them?! - Onboarding is simple: you provide all possible sorts of informations through a web form and attach all the files you own to back your claims. Mine crashed once, as they couldn't retrieve my files at some point - which meant I had to bother the new Company to provide me with a new application link. - In the link they sent you for the application form there is stated it takes 3 to 5 working days. It's a lie; even their call center says it takes at least 12-15 working days. More realistically it will take longer. - Nevertheless, I suspect that if you were employed and provided OCR-ready paystubs (for UK/US nationals) the employment background check might take less than one hour. It seems to me that their business is tremendously automatised, with bots scanning and data mining documents and an absolutely useless offshore call center being there just to reassure candidates that everything is fine. - After that, you will get various emails asking for more documents, that often do not even apply nor exist in your legislation. You can reply to these emails attaching those (sensitive) documents, IN CLEAR. They have one unique mailbox. I've no idea how can they manage to pass GDPR compliance with it. - Sometimes their call center will say "we did not receive the documents" and sometimes they will say "oh, they are here - all is good" (hours before they ask for them again). Apparently "processing the documents takes 48h/72h before they are seen by the team handling your case". This means that every time you send a document the background process takes at least 3 more days. They do not communicate internally, and I doubt they will see your documents anyway. - They have one VoIP number (apparently in the country the Company you are applying for is located) that redirects the calls to non-US/non-UK/non-EEA nationals. Generally I have no problem with that, let me be clear. But these people will have access to all of your sensitive documents (passport, university transcripts, contacts, employment contracts, invoices, etc). If this was confirmed it would be a GDPR issue which would deserve to be investigated by the competent Authorities, as I think it is legitimate, with this way of proceeding, the fear of identity theft and bank frauds done in your name. - Interesting to notice is that call handlers do not say their operator code: they just say their first name real quick. This makes no one accountable: again, I doubt this Company has ever been externally audited, these are red-flags pretty hard to miss. - They have no clue whatsoever of the privacy rules and legislations ruling the Country you have worked in. I've no idea why they claim to be able to perform international background checks. TAKE HOME MESSAGES ------------------ 1. I do not trust the authenthicity of positive reviews. Under their titles we can see that they were all "invited" to leave a review. Countless people sued Sterling, as a quick Google search reveals: I suspect it's not a bad idea in certain circumstance (I'll consider to join a class action if they don't finish my report in time). 2. If you have not worked in the US/UK and you have been a solo trader, my suggestion is to completely *refuse* the job offer, straight away and without thinking it twice. If you can't or don't want (i.e.: like in my case, if you really like the new Company), do not resign yet from your previous Company (if you are employed) or do not stop your business (if you are a contractor); do not stop taking interviews (if you are unemployed). It will realistically save you time and money. 3. If you are a Company using Sterling, please use a competitor. 4. Companies who decide to use Sterling, in my opinion, should state this before the interviewing process, even in the job advertisement (at the start, in bold red, in capital letters and with a danger symbol), so that candidates may google Sterling and make an informed decision whether carrying on with it (again: in most cases, you should not). Saying that my experience with Sterling has been terrible, to this date, would be an understatement.

Horribly long process. Took a month to validate that we were an actual company and when we finally got access to our dashboard the payment portal wouldn't work. There is no customer service number to call and all that they would say is try submitting payment at different times of the day in case it will work. This has been over a two month process with nothing to show for it. Use another company! Still haven't gotten our background check yet.

- Worst onboarding and background screening process that I've encountered in my entire life - Firstly, the candidate interface is totally opaque after you submit your files. Basically, you can't see any progress update or what is outstanding. This slows downs significantly the checks process because you can't chase up previous employers for references. - The Customer Services teams are very incompetent and unable to help. For instance, if you send an email with an employment reference to any of their inboxes and then call their Customer Services you are told that they don't have access to any of their inboxes. This massively slows down everything and means that you can't actually talk at all to anyone who is in charge of your file. - Even though they receive letters from current or previous employers it takes aprox 72h to actually mark the check as complete. This makes absolutely 0 sense and incredibly inefficient as a process. - To improve, they should assign each candidate a case officer that a candidate can reach out at any point rather than being ping ponged aroung various India-based Customer Service Teams that can't actually solve anything for you in a instant matter and endlessly forward emails to other Verification Teams that apparently can't be contacted by phone

If it were possible to rate this company any lower than one star, it would 100% be applied. Apart from clear data security red flags, from this company, I.e. no direct emails, a shared inbox for staff etc, I would be surprised if they are following any GDPR procedure. As well as this, I have made requests that have not been honoured and instead have been ignored. I spoke to one advisor on the phone who was helpful, but it turned out he had the incorrect information, told me nothing was outstanding, and then, I received multiple emails, separately asking for documentation, some of which I had already disclosed days earlier. Overall, a hugely unprofessional, stressful, and laborious service with seemingly no care or respect for candidates or clients. I will be pursuing my complaint further.

Very unhelpful. Sat on the phone for over an hour to speak with a supervisor about this delayed process on a simple background check. When I finally got through the woman I spoke with was no help and was unable to help rectify the situation at all. UPDATE: Still waiting with no more information than I had two weeks ago. But on a brighter note, everybody on their customer service team is "extremely sorry and completely understands". Apparently they also have no management team to speak with and can only offer the same unhelpful solution no matter the circumstance. Extremely frustrating

With regards to available information about an employer that is no longer in business, there was at least, amongst other concerns, a disconnect between the support team and whomever does the actual research. The applicant's entry form becomes useless when there is no current contact information. A required email address prevents form submission ... not even "n/a" is allowed, although "n/a" is allowed for the contact phone number. The support team first indicated to merely select the do not contact option for an employer that is no longer in business. After submitting that, a request for W-2 information was requested. After supplying 11 years of W-2 information, multiple re-requests for the same employer information were received without any information relayed to the candidate about the reason for the re-request. Additionally, because there no responses to submitted return emails restating that no current information was available, this brought questions and anxiety to this candidate as to the resource capacity of the background check process, if not the validity of the background check process as a whole. A company that was in business for more than 10 years ought to be simple thing to research and know that it was a legitimate employer. This employer was in fact an international company as well. It would seem that, this company doesn't have any resources beyond what is available to the general public via inquiry to the IRS. If eleven years of W-2 statements is not sufficient to affirm actual employment, for an employer that is no longer in business at the time of inquiry, there is little confidence in any other portion of the services being provided. Lastly, this candidate had a previous successful background check from Sterling which had no such issues. Although this candidate's background check was ultimately returned successful for employment, this candidate will not recommend Sterling's services.

I was asked for a reference for an employee that I used to supervise and I called all of their posted phone numbers as well as the number provided on the emails and no one will pick up. It is impossible to talk to a human being to complete a reference check. Now I know not to use this company's service in my hiring process.