No shenannygans

October 30, 2012 8:41 PM

We want to run a background check on a potential nanny. The online services I've found are all setting off my sketch alarms. Are any of them any good?
posted by rouftop to Work & Money (7 answers total)

Could you ask him/her to set up an account on www.sittercity.com? They have an optional background check service that requires fairly detailed personal information. It costs $10 (last I had a profile, about two years ago) and you could offer to cover the cost.

The risk, of course, is that he/she might get a better offer from another family via the site. I guess the validity of this option depends on how competitive your local nanny market is.
posted by charmcityblues at 9:04 PM on October 30, 2012

We use talentwise.com for our business. Might be worth checking out.
posted by fyrebelley at 9:19 PM on October 30, 2012

Like a criminal background check? I'd ask a property management company or two who they use. When I was looking at renting to strangers and when a friend was renting to strangers, we just called the last property management firm we had rented from ourselves and got a rec.
posted by MonsieurBon at 9:22 PM on October 30, 2012

My wife has to undergo a criminal background check every year as part of state licensing of her workplace. She merely goes down to our city/county building and has the sheriff's office run hers.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:09 AM on October 31, 2012

We use hireright.com four our business, and it seems pretty good, though it might be pricey for what you're looking for. County and municipal records should be free to search and available online. I believe the National Sex Offender Registry is free and searchable online.
posted by slogger at 8:36 AM on October 31, 2012

Always go through your state. Different states have different laws on public records and background investigations, so you don't want to be doing something that's illegal in your state through some web service. You also don't want to be paying a crap ton of money for a service that you could get much cheaper if you had gone through the state instead.

Be aware that no matter what a web service will promise you (tax records, background checks, etc), that the company cannot go above the law. For example, some states require consent of a person before they can be investigated by someone else. If this is the case for your state, then no matter what the online service promises you, they cannot obtain records without prior consent.

You live in Washington State? Check out some of these links:

Washington State Patrol
Washington Courts
posted by nikkorizz at 9:32 AM on October 31, 2012

We, too, did a background check before hiring our nanny. We, also, thought all of the Internet sources were really sketchy.

So, we went with Verified Credentials because that is what a lot of gigantic corporations use (first hand experience), so we knew it was the real deal.
posted by TinWhistle at 11:39 AM on October 31, 2012