It just makes the tenants pay for it. From their website:
Request Access to Your Tenant's Credit Report
When you run a tenant credit check through Experian, you can be assured you are seeing the tenant's verifiedinformation directly from the credit bureau and not from a potentially fraudulent printout, fax or scanned copy.Understand your obligations under the Learn More
Send A Request – All you need is the prospective tenant's name and email address
Get Authorization – Tenants will purchase their credit report and score for $14.95 and grant you free access
Check Tenant's Credit – You will receive a notification when their credit report is ready for you. View Sample Report
If you reject the tenant on their credit report, you need to send the tenant a letter letting them know which bureau you used, and they have the right to a free report. If you fail to send the letter Experian will cancel your account.
Name, recent addresses used, social security verification, DOB verification; eviction records search, nationwide criminal and sex offender scan; nationwide criminal court records; credit summary includes tradelines, accounts, payment history, estimated monthly debts, past due, and available credit; collection accounts and outstanding balances; prior inquiries and rent history.
@MattP, I guess a better question would have been, how robust is the information in the databases that they pull from. I used a tenant screening service recently and got a reply back almost immediately. That makes me wonder if the query and the data queried is of value.
Don't want to burst your bubble. Only law enforcement can run nationwide criminal search through NCIC. So be caution on someone saying they can run a nationwide criminal search.
Contemporary Information Corp is a screening service. That's the CIC I am referring to, not NCIC.
Fortunately for me, they have returned information on reports we have requested on applicants that have active warrants, felony criminal history, or a sex offender. So I'm sure they found it somewhere! The sex offender even came back with a photo.
It has recently returned traffic court information from AZ and PA specifically (state level) and I've seen ICE warrants (federal level)
I'm commenting on the quality of the service because I use it.
In response to Matt, CIC actually does offer verification services. It's just not part of the instant data services. You can call their customer service line and one of the researchers will contact references, and make notes directly on the report for you to have access to through your online account.