When I first heard about online criminal background checks, I thought it was a great idea. I run a service that provides afters chool supervision for children as well as tutoring, and so I'm required to make sure that I'm hiring people without a criminal record. After all, they are going to be working with children. They need to be safe.

Online background checks cost just a fraction of what regular ones do, and they are so much quicker. I ordered an online background check of someone whose record I knew, and was satisfied. It seemed to be very accurate, and much more practical than the old way of doing it.

I really should have researched things a little more carefully. I know now that I was irresponsible. At the time, I was doing everything that I could to save money. My hastiness, however, could have cost lives. It certainly put our children in danger. You see, the online background check failed to catch the fact that someone we hired had been convicted of statutory rape. Although he had since reformed, our hiring practices, as well as the state standards, demanded that we not hire someone like him. His information was all available through public records, but the online background check caught none of it. Maybe there are some online background check services that are good, but the one that we used was not.

Honestly, I never would have even questioned the online background check except for a parental complaint. Apparently, one of the parents thought that that the employee with the criminal record was a bit creepy. She did not like the way he held one of the children, and asked if we had checked his records. I told her that we had done an online background check, but she was shocked when she found out. She said that online background checks were notoriously insecure.

She has a husband who is a cop, and he had told her that they were worthless. We did a criminal record check from an independent company, and came up with the true record of his past. It turns out that he wasn't really doing anything wrong in the workplace, but if it hadn't been for that parental accusation, he could've kept working for us for years. In all likelihood, there was nothing wrong with them anymore. But still, who knows? You really can't take those risks when you work with children.