Sterling, A First Advantage CompanyReviews of sterlingcheck.com

Great company fast results

Thank you! AVMjr

You all have great representatives. And you aim to please

Sterling service is very helpful especially during this challenging time. All I did is providing my information and they have done the work.

Fast and quick response to my inquiry. Kristine was kind/helpful.

If you have recently accepted an offer subject to background screening and your future employer uses Sterling, then rest assured that your cortisol levels will elevate rapidly as Sterling will make you stressed even if you know you have nothing to hide! Here is my story. I was issued with an application form by Sterling which I completed within a couple days of them sending it to me. This took me a good few hours to complete as I was expected to provide PROOF of past addresses for the last 6 years (equating to 7 addresses). Over a week later, they had contacted me to let me know that I needed to provide additional documentation as I had not provided correct documentation for one of my past addresses and they were unable to reach one of my previous employers “due to the coronavirus crisis”. I easily managed to get in touch with the employer myself by calling the number I had listed in the application form and obtained the required documents. I am not sure what they are paid to do, if you have to do all the hard work for them. Anyways, having gathered the requested information, I tried to get back to them on the email address provided but my email bounced back. I contacted the UK number, which almost certainly is redirected to outside of the UK (and even outside the EU), and every time I tried to call there were connection issues. The following week, I managed to finally speak to someone, although the conversation was rather challenging due to language and connectivity reasons, who acknowledged that they are facing technological problems and that they will e-mail me from a different e-mail address requesting the additional documents. They did in fact e-mail me but the message was slightly strange, rather than requesting documentation they thanked me for sending documents over. This was rather confusing as the e-mail I had originally sent bounced back. Nonetheless, I replied and added a copy of the original e-mail I had sent them. A few days later, I received another e-mail from them requesting more documentation for proof of past addresses that I had already provided documentation for in the online application. This request was not accompanied by any explanation, not to mention that their original email requesting additional information gave the impression that everything else had already been accepted. I replied to ask them for an explanation and they wrote back saying that they are unable to locate the documentation I uploaded on the application. How can a background check company loose documents that contain sensitive information about their clients?! Finally, after that last email, I got in touch with my employer who told me to ignore their emails. A couple days later I was informed, by my employer, that my security checks have been completed. Nonetheless, Sterling still continued to contact me requesting the missing information. This whole experience raises security concerns (GDPR) for me with regards to the data and extensive documentation that they asked me to provide, especially that the impression I have is that they are operating from outside the EU. None of my past experiences with background checks have ever been this stressful and time consuming. It's a shame you cannot rate less than 1 star.

I wanted to wait until my background check was finished to leave this review, and I had to wait 2 months for that. So you know what's coming... To give you a little background, I'm from a third world country, currently living in Europe and working for a company based in the UK. So I was not expecting the process to be a piece of cake, but neither for it to be a nightmare. Where do I start? Multiple emails asking for the same information over and over again, the people in Sterling don't know how to read your documents. If you are from a third world country good luck with them trying to understand how your jurisdiction works. Damn, they don't even know how the jurisdiction in European countries works. Want to get in touch with them? Better call to their UK number, because otherwise your issue won't get resolved! Don't even try to bother yourself emailing them, they have 0 communication between their own departments, your personal information for sure is at risk because they lose it. And the worst? It's mandatory! If your company decided this is the services they want to use you have no other option than to deal with their incompetence. I was lucky because I was already hired by the company, and this was sort of a backlog review kind of thing, but I can only imagine the nightmare people who haven't been hired have to go through. Im pretty sure a lot of people out there have missed their opportunities because of Sterling lack of professionalism. And the worst thing is that they won't held responsibility of anything, they don't even let you know when your review is done! Customer service is null! I just find unbelievable, how a company with such bad reviews and such bad service keep getting chosen to provide their services, this company should be erased from the face of the Earth. All I can tell you is, if you need to go through Sterling, light up some candles and pray to God because you'll go through one HELL of a time with them. I gave them 1 star, but I wish I could give them -5 stars. This rating is too good for them!

I signed my offer letter and employment verification yesterday at almost 10pm and today I have received 3 emails requesting for employment verification from my current employer and my previous one. It has not even been 24 hours since I submitted my information. They have also emailed my current employer today for my employment verification. I called them to ask why they are so persistent and did not give me at least 24 hours to give them the information they requested prior to contacting my current employer. I work in an at-will state so I called them. Charles from Sterling Talent Solutions kept telling me that they are able to because I said they could contact my employer. I have no problem with them contacting any of my employers however, the fact that they did not wait at least 2 weeks prior to starting at my new employer. I should not have to do their job for them. I will talk to my new employer about using another company for this type of services. Completely inappropriate and unprofessional. Why am I doing your job for you?