Sterling, A First Advantage CompanyReviews of sterlingcheck.com

I received a call asking for verification on a past employee's employment. I could not understand the person at all. Even when he tried to spell out the last name of the employee using the NATO alpa system I couldn't understand what words he was using. It was so very frustrating. Horrible!! I ended up hanging up and the guy I was so frustrated.

This company is the WORST. Not sure how they can remain in business with the questionable things that they do in the name of background checks. After the HELL they have put me through, I decided to do some research on their company. And, WOW, there is a law firm who does nothing but accepts lawsuits on a contingency bases, from those who had losses due to Sterling's actions. There are even class action lawsuits against Sterling. I would suggest those who have lost job opportunities or have had their personal information compromised because of Sterling to seek legal advice. This will help others in the future as well.

This is the WORST background screening company I have ever seen. I'm glad I don't need the WAH job I was applying for, I applied to try to catch up on bills because of the COVID pandemic with layoffs and paycuts in my home. I have been working at home for over 15 years and this company is the pits. When the company sent me an invite to work with them and I saw Sterling was the one doing the background screening I started to not even do it when I saw them. I am a rehire at this company and have worked for them before. Sterling is requesting that I send them more information about a Job that I retired from over 20 years ago. A background check is not looking for my w2's from 20 years ago nor If I really graduated High School and I am in my late 50's this company is a joke. And I only hope nobody was not hired because of this sorry company. If you were I am really sorry. Luckily this was going to be extra income for me so I don't really need it and I'm not going to send them my personal info over the internet. These people are horrible and said company need to find somebody else to do their background checks. I have a few companies that I work for and I have had several background check done successfully. Before I retired I was a bookkeeper/accountant on my Job and they screen me from top to bottom. I have had to do drugscreens and background check with other companies and I don't have a problem with it and they did not put me through the wringer and make me jump through unnecessary hoops. This is crazy what they are asking me for.

Repeated emails, with asking same information over and over again. Read below and you will see similar complaints. Tells a lot about this company and companies enlisting their services.

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?

Very bad service. Call centre in india what they doing they answer the call then no talk. 8 hours 79 calls i did. Sometimes no body speak and sometimes they saying Hello may I help you 2 times and disconnected the call.