Oct 25, 2021 @ 2:28 PM EDT | United States
Our service provider, Equifax Workforce Solutions (formerly known as TALX) has informed Sterling and all consumer reporting agencies (CRAs), that they are significantly raising pricing for their employment verification service, The Work Number®.
To ensure you get the most benefit out of The Work Number® and their price increase, Sterling is establishing an optimized fulfillment model where The Work Number® will be used as the initial verification method in our employment verification process. We believe this will result in faster turnaround times, improved accuracy, and higher success rates.
This price change takes effect as of December 1, 2021, and you will see these changes in your January 2022 invoice for December orders. To learn more, please log into your account, click on Help and Resources, and search for “Important Service Updates”.
Thank you for your partnership, and most importantly, your continued trust in Sterling.
Oct 20, 2021 @ 3:33 PM EDT | Global, United States
In January 2021, the Social Security Administration issued a new SSA-89 form (version 12-2020) that’s used to fulfill Sterling’s Consent Based Social Verification (CBSV) service. The old CBSV version (02-2018) expired at the end of September 2021. To avoid delays, please begin using the new version immediately. Please contact us if you have any questions. Thank you for your continued trust in Sterling.
Oct 20, 2021 @ 2:58 PM EDT | Global, United States
From Friday, October 15 to Tuesday, October 19, 2021, Motor Vehicle Record (MVR) searches for Georgia and North Carolina were unavailable due to statewide issues. The issue is now resolved, and all impacted searches are expected to be processed by end of day, Friday, October 22, 2021. We appreciate your patience.
Oct 19, 2021 @ 10:31 AM EDT | Global, United States
Motor vehicle record (MVR) searches for Georgia and North Carolina are unavailable as of Friday, October 15, 2021 due to statewide issues. As a result, please expect delays. We are monitoring the situation to reinstate MVR fulfillment as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.
Oct 13, 2021 @ 2:57 PM EDT | Global, United States
As we communicated on September 15, 2021, Los Angeles (L.A.) County, California has removed public access to full date of birth information, which is impacting all court researchers and screening companies. Full date of birth information (month, date and year of birth) is a key identifier that is used to match candidates to court records. With this change, the L.A. County Court has made it increasingly difficult, and in some cases impossible, to obtain sufficient identifiers needed to fulfill and complete searches.
Sterling continues to offer services in all California counties, however, please be advised that a small percentage of criminal checks in L.A. County may take longer than usual due to the additional steps needed to look for additional identifiers. In addition, due to the clerk’s action, some searches are no longer able to be completed, and will be designated as unperformable.
Unperformable does not mean that there is something in the record that pertains to the candidate. It simply means that the search was not able to be fully performed—it could not be completed at the time it was submitted due to the lack of information available from the Court.
Sterling is exploring all possible avenues to fulfill all of your search requests, including working with our trade associations to restore access to full date of birth. Unfortunately, there is no quick path to resolution, and we anticipate this issue will continue in the foreseeable future. While the issue today is limited to L.A. County, we are monitoring the situation closely and will update clients if other counties follow suit.
We will continue to keep you up to date, and we understand that you may have questions and concerns, so please feel free to contact your Sterling Client Success representative.
Sterling is not a law firm and does not dispense legal advice. The information provided herein is general business information, is not based on any particular facts or situations, and is not to be relied upon as legal advice, even if you are currently a client of Sterling. You are encouraged to seek advice from your own legal counsel concerning matters covered in this notice.
Oct 11, 2021 @ 11:02 AM EDT | United States
The agency that processes State of Georgia (GA) criminal search requests is operating with limited staff from Monday, September 20 to Friday, October 29, 2021, which is a month longer than previous estimates. The agency is working as quickly as possible to process requests, but turnaround time delays of 5 business days are expected through Friday, October 29, 2021 as they train and onboard new staff. We will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as they become available. Thank you for your patience.
