Business Information Group (BIG) Background Check: Errors, Disputes & FCRA Rights

Did an error in your Business Information Group background check cost you a job?

If it did, you have the right to dispute inaccurate information. If the error affected your employment, you can sue under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to recover money for the financial losses and harm you suffered.

What shows up on your Business Information Group (BIG) background check depends on what your potential employer requested. If something looks wrong, you'll need to review the report first to know what to fix.

What Is Business Information Group (BIG)?

Business Information Group, Inc., usually shortened to BIG, provides background screening for the financial services industry. Founded in 1989, it is a subsidiary of Vertical Screen, Inc. You may encounter its name when applying for a job with a financial services employer or going through an insurance licensing or contracting process.

References to BIG, BIG Report, or bigreport.com during screening generally point to this company. BIG prepares consumer reports and identifies itself as a consumer reporting agency, which brings its reporting activities under the FCRA.

BIG supplies the information. Your employer decides what to do with it. That division matters when you’re trying to find out why a report is still being processed, why a job offer was withdrawn, or who needs to correct a mistake.

What Does a Business Information Group Background Check Include?

The employer’s screening package determines much of what BIG checks. The position and applicable federal, state, and local law also affect which searches can be requested and how the results can be used.

BIG lists screening services that include:

• Social Security number validation and verification;
• criminal and civil court records;
• employment and education history verification;
• credit reports;
• professional license and designation verification;
• motor vehicle records;
• sex offender registry searches;
• sanctions and prohibited-party searches;
• reference interviews;
• residency or address history; and
• financial services searches, including FINRA BrokerCheck and insurance licensing checks.

The company also offers fingerprinting, occupational health screening, Form I-9 and onboarding services, and monitoring tools.

BIG also handles international screening, and that can involve more than simply running a name through a database. The company says it contacts former employers and schools directly when verifying overseas employment and education. It can also check passports, government-issued identification, professional credentials, company directorships, residency, driving records, civil records, and financial information where those records are available.

Some of BIG's tools are fairly specialized. Its ActionsBase database, for example, tracks administrative and disciplinary actions from international sources. Its education checks also use DegreeScan, which BIG says helps identify questionable schools and potential diploma mills.

That’s a service menu, though. Your report won’t necessarily contain everything on it. A role requiring a professional license may involve checks that another position doesn’t need – your potential employer will request only the checks relevant to the position you’re considered for. Two applicants screened by BIG can therefore receive quite different reports.

To find out what was actually reported about you, get your own copy.

How Long Does a Business Information Group Background Check Take?

BIG itself doesn’t publish one blanket turnaround time, and there is a good reason for that. A background check is usually made up of several separate searches, and each one can move at a different pace. You can read more about it in our guide on how long a background check takes.

BIG's own inProcess system, which employers access through myBIG.com, tracks those pieces individually. While a report is being researched, employers can see which parts are already completed, which are still pending, and the expected turnaround time for the work that remains. BIG keeps the overall report marked “In Process” until all of the research is complete.

Sometimes the hold-up has nothing to do with a problem in your background. BIG uses “On Hold” when the screening has been opened but the applicant still needs to complete required forms. A “Problem” status means some information is missing or incomplete, and BIG is working to obtain it from the applicant or employer. Once all research is finished and the report has been delivered, the status changes to “Complete.”

The actual wait depends heavily on what the employer ordered. A database search may come back quickly, while a county court search that requires manual retrieval can take longer. Employment and education verifications depend on former employers and schools responding, and international checks can add another layer of waiting.

So if your BIG background check has been running for more than a few business days, that doesn’t automatically mean something went wrong. Ask the recruiter or employer whether the report is still being researched, whether one particular search is outstanding, or whether BIG is waiting for something from you.

How to Check Your BIG Background Check Status

You can check your BIG background check status through BIG's Consumer Care portal using your Case Report Number, or by calling the Consumer Care Department at 1-800-260-1680.

The frustrating thing about a pending background check is that “still processing” doesn’t tell you very much. Is BIG waiting on a courthouse? Did a former employer fail to respond? Is there a missing form sitting in your inbox? Or has BIG already finished, and the employer simply hasn’t decided yet?

BIG actually gives employers a fairly detailed answer to those questions. Through its inProcess system on myBIG.com, employers can see which parts of a background check are finished, which are still being researched, and the expected turnaround time for work that remains. BIG uses four main status labels: In Process, On Hold, Problem, and Complete.

Applicants, however, don’t appear to get that same employer-facing dashboard. What BIG does provide consumers is its Consumer Care portal. If you have your Case Report Number, you can use it to access the results of your background check. If you already created a Consumer Care account, you can log in there instead.

If you don’t have your Case Report Number or can’t access the portal, you can call BIG’s Consumer Care Department by phone: 1-800-260-1680.

Can a Business Information Group Background Check Contain Errors?

Yes. Sometimes, these background checks can get important facts wrong, leave out information that changes the meaning of a record, or attribute someone else’s history to you.

An unfavorable result isn’t, by itself, proof of a mistake. The question is whether the report accurately describes your history and includes information that can lawfully be reported.

Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b), a consumer reporting agency must use reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of the information it reports. That obligation applies when the report is prepared, before a consumer discovers a problem and files a dispute.

Common BIG Background Check Errors

When reviewing a BIG report, look for problems such as:

• Someone else’s records. A criminal case, incorrect criminal record, or civil record may belong to a totally different person with a similar name or different identifying details.
• An incorrect case outcome. A dismissed charge may appear as pending, or the report may leave out the disposition that explains what happened.
• Sealed, expunged, or outdated information. Check whether a record has been reported despite an applicable legal restriction or whether its status is out of date.
• Duplicate entries. The same underlying record may appear more than once, giving a misleading impression of your history.
• Wrong employment details. Dates, positions, or even the employer itself may be incorrect.
• Education mistakes. A report may misstate a degree, graduation status, or attendance history.

If any of the above errors appear in your report, it deserves attention. A recruiter reading that record may have no way to know it’s wrong until you point it out.

What If Your Business Information Group Background Check Is Wrong?

If you spot something wrong in your BIG report, resist the urge to dispute it immediately. Take some time first to understand exactly what was reported and have the records to back up your version of that.

Start by getting your own copy of the report. If you have a Case Report Number, you can access it through BIG’s Consumer Care portal. If you cannot access the portal or don’t have the number, call Consumer Care at 1-800-260-1680. BIG says consumers can request a copy of a background screening report it prepared about them at no charge.

Next step is to read the report against what you know to be correct. Maybe there’s a criminal record in there that belongs to someone else. Maybe a case disposition is wrong, some of your employment dates are off, or an education check came back incorrectly. Mark every problem separately rather than treating the report as one big error.

Next, pull together whatever shows the correct information. Court records, employment documents, school records, identification, or other supporting material can all be useful depending on what went wrong.

Before anything gets corrected or replaced, save the original report and your communications with both BIG and the employer. Keep any pre-adverse action notice, adverse-action notice, job offer, recruiter email, or other message showing how the report affected the hiring process.

Once you have all of that together, you are ready to dispute the inaccurate information.

If the report has already affected a job, our guide toemployment background check errors explains more about the problems that can arise when inaccurate screening information reaches an employer.

How to Dispute a Business Information Group Background Check

1. Get a copy of your BIG report.
2. List each inaccurate or incomplete item separately.
3. Match supporting documents to each error.
4. Submit the dispute through BIG Consumer Care (online, fax, or mail).
5. State what is wrong and what it should say instead.
6. Keep copies of everything you send and receive.
7. Compare the reinvestigation results with your records.
8. If the error remains or cost you a job, talk to an FCRA attorney.

If you have already pulled your report, marked the errors, and gathered your records, you have done a good part of the work. The dispute itself is about putting that information in front of BIG clearly enough that there is no confusion about what you are challenging.

1. Make sure you have the BIG report

Work from the actual report, not from a recruiter’s description or summary of it. If there are several errors, you want to be able to point to each one precisely.

2. Separate the errors

Treat each inaccurate or incomplete item as its own issue. If one criminal case belongs to someone else and your employment dates are also wrong, mention both these errors. Give enough detail to identify each entry, such as the court case, employer, date, or other information shown in the report.

3. Put the supporting records with the right error

A court disposition should sit with the court-record dispute. Employment records should support the employment-history correction. If the information belongs to someone else, provide documentation that helps show the mismatch.

Your goal here is not to bury BIG in paperwork but to send them what actually helps establish the correct facts.

4. Send the dispute through BIG’s official Consumer Care process

BIG currently accepts disputes online, by fax, and by mail:

• Online: BIG Consumer Care
• Fax: 1-888-495-8476
• Mail: Business Information Group, Consumer Care Department, PO Box 541, Southampton, PA 18966

For fax or mail correspondence, you need to include your full name, date of birth, full Social Security number for identification, address, phone number, details of the dispute, and relevant supporting documents. If you have any questions, you can call BIG’s Consumer Care at 1-800-260-1680.

5. Say plainly what is wrong and what it should be corrected to

There is no benefit in making the dispute sound like a lawsuit. Something straightforward is often much clearer:

“The report lists this case as pending. The attached court disposition shows that it was dismissed on May 14, 2026. Please update the reported disposition.”

Or, if the record isn’t yours:

“This criminal record belongs to another person. The identifying information in the court record does not match mine.”

The point is to leave as little room for misunderstanding as possible.

6. Keep your own copy of the dispute

Save what you sent, every attachment, the submission confirmation, and any proof of delivery. Keep BIG’s response too. If you speak with BIG or the employer by phone, jot down the date and what was discussed. You don’t need an elaborate log, just enough to reconstruct what happened later if you need to.

7. Read the reinvestigation result, not just the word “completed”

Under the FCRA, a consumer reporting agency generally has 30 days from receiving a qualifying dispute to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation. That period can be extended by up to 15 additional days in certain circumstances if the consumer sends relevant new information during the original 30 days.

After the reinvestigation, compare the revised report with the records you submitted. If the information was found to be inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable, the FCRA requires it to be deleted or modified as appropriate.

Keep in mind that a dispute being marked closed doesn’t tell you whether the underlying problem was actually fixed.

8. If the error is still there, look at what happened next

A typo that gets corrected quickly is one thing. Another person’s criminal record that remains after you sent proof, especially after it cost you a job, is something else.

If the inaccurate information remains unresolved, keeps reappearing, or has already caused a withdrawn offer, job denial, delayed start, or other employment harm, that is the point where it may make sense to have an FCRA attorney review the report, the dispute, and BIG’s response.

Read our in-depth guide on how to dispute a failed background check for an in-depth walkthrough of the entire process.

What Happens If an Employer Takes Action Based on Your BIG Report?

Sometimes the effect of a background check is straightforward: the offer gets pulled, you’re told you didn’t get the job, and somebody else gets the job or the promotion you were counting on.

Other times, however, it’s less direct and more subtle than that. Your start date keeps moving, the recruiter suddenly becomes vague or unresponsive, or a hiring process that seemed almost finished – stalls.

Background reports are used to make real employment decisions affecting real people. Delays translate into lost wages, while a withdrawn offer resets the job search process. But besides the lost wages and lost time, there’s something even more detrimental in this story: if the harm happened because of bad information in your report, where’s the guarantee it won’t happen over and over again?

Still, a bad outcome does not automatically mean someone violated the FCRA, and bad information isn’t always the same as inaccurate or wrong information. An employer can make an unfavorable decision based on accurate information and that is not infringing the FCRA..

The bigger concern is when the report itself is wrong, when the procedures used to prepare it may have been inadequate or superficial, when a serious error stays in the report even after being disputed, or when the employer skips the steps required before acting on the report.

Before the decision becomes final

If an employer is preparing to reject an application, withdraw an offer, deny a promotion, terminate employment, or take another adverse employment action based in whole or in part on a consumer report, it generally must give you a copy of the report they’re basing their decision on first, along with A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

This is your chance to see what the employer didn’t like before their decision becomes final. If the report contains someone else’s criminal record, the wrong outcome of a case, or another serious mistake, raise it with the employer right away and dispute it with BIG. You can also ask the employer to hold the decision while the error is being reviewed.

Of course, that doesn’t guarantee the job will stay open, but it gives you a chance to correct the record before the opportunity is gone.

If the employer takes adverse action

If the employer moves forward and takes adverse action based in whole or in part on the BIG report, you should receive another notice, following the pre-adverse action notice.

This is the adverse notice, and it must identify the reporting agency, explain that the agency did not make the employer’s decision, and tell you that you have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information and request another free copy of the report within 60 days.

Keep that notice, along with the report, any earlier pre-adverse action materials, offer letters, recruiter emails, and messages showing that hiring was delayed, a promotion was denied, or another opportunity was lost.

If the matter later has to be reviewed, those records help answer the questions that make the difference: what was reported, what did the employer do with it, and did the mistake cause you harm?

That is usually where the line between an unfavorable but lawful hiring decision and a situation that may raise FCRA concerns is drawn.

Your Rights Under the FCRA

Employment background checks fall within FCRA’s applicability, which applies to reports used for hiring, retention, promotion, reassignment, and other employment decisions. For most employment background checks, several protections are particularly important, both on the employer’s and on the screening company’s (including BIG) side.

The Employer's Duties

The employer is entirely responsible for the consent and decision-making phases of the process:

• Before the report: They must give you a standalone, written disclosure and get your written signature before ordering the check.
• Before a final decision (Pre-Adverse Action): If something negative in the report makes them want to reject you, they must first give you a copy of the report and a Summary of Your Rights. Also, they should give you reasonable time to review the report and the dispute if there’s something in it you don’t agree with. Employers commonly allow about five business days between the pre-adverse action notice and a final decision, but the FCRA itself does not set a specific number of days.
• After a final decision (Adverse Action): If the employer officially decides not to hire or promote you, they must send a final notice identifying the screening agency (like BIG) and explaining your right to dispute the file or get a free copy.

The Screening Company's (e.g., BIG) Duties

The background check company is strictly responsible for the accuracy and investigation phases:

• During preparation: They are legally required to follow "reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy" of the information. They cannot just blindly report mismatched files or expunged records.
• Once a report is prepared: You have the right to access and review your information and dispute inaccuracies.
• If you dispute an error: If you submit a dispute regarding inaccurate information, the screening agency must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation, usually within 30 days, to correct or delete the flawed data from your report.

If a background check results in a lost job opportunity due to a mistake or a rushed process, consumer protection attorneys will evaluate both sides. They will check if the screening company reported inaccurate data and if the employer failed to give you your mandatory pre-adverse action waiting period

When handling potentially adverse public records, consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) must adhere to one of these two compliance standards set by FCRA 1681k:

• The Concurrent Notice Path (1681k(a)(1)): The screening agency provides you with notice simultaneously as it delivers the report to the prospective employer, including the employer's full name and address.
• The Strict Procedures Path (1681k(a)(2)): Alternatively, the agency can forgo sending notice if it enforces strict procedures to guarantee the public records are current when reported. "Current" requires the entry to reflect its true, present disposition, such as verifying that a tax lien has been satisfied or a criminal charge dismissed.

If a background check provider neglects both options and provides inaccurate public record information that leads to a lost job offer, it may be subject to actual or statutory damages under the FCRA.

These legal safeguards govern different aspects of the background screening process. An employer might fail to follow statutory notice requirements even if the background report itself is accurate; conversely, a screening company might report incorrect data even when the employer handles the notices properly. Evaluating your background report alongside all written correspondence helps pinpoint where a failure occurred.

Business Information Group and the FCRA: Kelly v. BIG

In Kelly v. Business Information Group, Inc., Michael Kelly alleged that BIG furnished his employer a report attributing an unpaid-debt court case to him that actually belonged to someone else. He alleged that the adverse public-record information caused him to lose employment opportunities.

His claims involved § 1681e(b), concerning reasonable accuracy procedures, and § 1681k, concerning adverse public records reported for employment. In June 2017, the court allowed his amended § 1681k claim to proceed beyond the motion-to-dismiss stage. That ruling addressed whether the claim was sufficiently pleaded; it did not establish that BIG had violated the law.

The litigation later settled, with court approval in 2019. The agreement established a $3.3 million settlement fund and included changes to certain public-record notice practices. BIG denied the allegations, and the settlement was not a finding of liability.

The case illustrates how a disputed record in an employment report can lead to litigation over reporting obligations and alleged job harm.

Can You Sue Business Information Group for Background Check Errors?

You may have grounds for an FCRA lawsuit if BIG failed to meet its legal obligations. A reporting error alone doesn’t establish liability or entitle you to compensation.

An attorney will look at how the information was matched to you, whether the reporting procedures were reasonable, and what BIG did after receiving a dispute. A stranger’s criminal history in your file raises different questions from an incorrect employment date; an error that remains after you supplied clear evidence that it is wrong deserves particular scrutiny. Applicable public-record requirements may matter as well.

That naturally raises another question: can I sue a background check company? The answer depends on what went wrong, whether the company failed to meet its FCRA obligations, and whether that failure caused harm.

The effect on your employment is another part of that review. A withdrawn offer, lost promotion, termination, or delayed start date can help establish harm if it resulted from the reporting failure. The original report, employer communications, and dispute results help connect those events.

The FCRA provides different remedies depending on the violation:

• Negligent noncompliance: You may recover actual damages caused by the failure. A successful action can also include costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.
• Willful noncompliance: The law permits actual damages or statutory damages of up to $1,000, with possible punitive damages. Costs and reasonable attorney’s fees are also available in a successful action.

Those amounts aren’t a promise of payment. The available remedies depend on the claim, the evidence, and the legal requirements for bringing it. An employer’s handling of the report may also require separate review, particularly if authorization or required notices were missing.

When Should You Contact an FCRA Attorney?

If someone else’s criminal record appears in your BIG report, an offer has been withdrawn because of inaccurate information, or a serious error keeps returning after a dispute, speak with a background check lawyer. You can also seek advice when required background check procedures appear to have been skipped, even if you’re still trying to work out exactly what happened.

You don’t have to wait until every part of the dispute process is over to ask for help. When a start date has passed and the paychecks you expected haven’t materialized, correcting the report and understanding your legal options can both need attention.

Consumer Attorneys can review your BIG report, the evidence supporting your dispute, and the employer’s communications. We’ll look at what went wrong, whether it affected your employment, and which FCRA obligations may be involved. Our work on employment background check errors focuses on helping consumers address inaccurate reports and evaluate possible claims.