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Charged with a Crime?
Jeice
regular
regular
All this is in Canada. So, I applied to a job, and they did the normal background check. However, they got back to me saying that I've been:
"convicted of a criminal offense for which a pardon has not been granted"
Now, that is news to me. To my knowledge, I've never been convicted of a criminal offense. I think the most I've ever dealt with the police is parking tickets, which I've all paid for. I've checked out pardons.org, a site about Canadian pardons, and they say that:
"If you have been charged with a crime, even if you were found not guilty, or were never convicted, you do have a criminal record"
But, how do I know if "I've been charged with a crime?" I mean, a police officer has never said, you're being arrested, or you're being charged with. In fact, I can't think of any time I've ever had to talk to a police officer. I've never even gotten a speeding ticket. I've never been to court either. Can you be charged for a crime and not know about it?
Could this all be one big mistake? I'm kind of freaked out a bit, and don't know what to do. How do I confirm if I really have a record or not? Please help!
"convicted of a criminal offense for which a pardon has not been granted"
Now, that is news to me. To my knowledge, I've never been convicted of a criminal offense. I think the most I've ever dealt with the police is parking tickets, which I've all paid for. I've checked out pardons.org, a site about Canadian pardons, and they say that:
"If you have been charged with a crime, even if you were found not guilty, or were never convicted, you do have a criminal record"
But, how do I know if "I've been charged with a crime?" I mean, a police officer has never said, you're being arrested, or you're being charged with. In fact, I can't think of any time I've ever had to talk to a police officer. I've never even gotten a speeding ticket. I've never been to court either. Can you be charged for a crime and not know about it?
Could this all be one big mistake? I'm kind of freaked out a bit, and don't know what to do. How do I confirm if I really have a record or not? Please help!
Jeice on
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It's your information, er, so they think. You should be able to get more information about it through them.
If not, perhaps a trip to a police station?
Even the typical police cruiser (in American anyway) usually has computers that let officers look up records.
I recently had my credit report screwed up thanks to similar names and other companies' incompetence.
For instance, a credit was issued under my name from 1976. I was born in 1983. Even these glaring errors aren't rectified unless you bring it to their attention.
Tell the company you believe the check is in error, and that you're contacting the police and the background check company for more details. I'd hope they're understanding while you figure it out.
You'd almost certainly know if you'd actually been charged with a crime. It's not just being arrested - if you'd been charged, the cops would have had you down at the police station and would have told that you're being charged with X, even if you were subsequently released.
You can check your own criminal record. There's a web site called mybackcheck.com that will provide you with a criminal record check. It costs around $50. You can also go into your local police station or RCMP detachment and have them check. You might want to consider one of those. The police do these all the time as such checks are required for a bunch of different things.
Before you do anything, though, you may want to check with an actual lawyer. There are two reasons. If, for some reason, there is some outstanding issue and you went into the police station to get them to do a criminal records check, you could be arrested. Your attorney could check on your behalf and work to sort things out if there is a problem. The second reason is that if a check has been done in error and you didn't get a job for that reason, the company that did the records check may have libeled you and done material damage, and as such you could sue for said damages.
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At this point I'm wondering if someone didn't copy your info down wrong somewhere along the way.
Canada has decent privacy legislation as well as passable freedom of information laws. I can understand there being reticence to release the criminal records of some person to some random third party, but I cannot fathom why the OP was denied the ability to see his own file.
Those things are usually part of the public record anyway -- if he was charged with a crime, or if there was some kind of warrant issued, all of that is done publicly, at court. It has to be: the Charter guarantees you to basic legal rights, such as being told of what you are accused of. There are extremely limited circumstances where documents pertaining to the justice system are "classified" or unavailable to the public and those that are, are categorically dealing with things like espionage or terrorism (i.e. the "security certificate" program that made the news a few years back). Presumably you are neither a spy nor a terrorist, so I am rather perplexed why you were stone walled.
Maybe you have to sign some forms or pay some fee? That's usually how these things work.
I had a similar thing come back with one of my checks. Another check said I was an illegal alien.
All they do is look up court records in your area and go by your name. I know this because when I found out which company was used I called them in a rage. Turns out the ex-con with my name happened to have been born a completely different year, in a different state, of an entirely different ethnicity.
I put them on notice that I'd be looking into suing for defamation of character if it happens again. I'm not sure what you could charge them with in Canada.
Yeah, this. I had a background check company in the US loose their shit after they found out I had lived and worked in Canada for a while. They wanted me to send along tax returns and stuff. I more or less told them to get lost, since I'd already been working at the job, and digging down on my info is really their job, not mine, as I had provided everything they needed on their forms and for employment in the US. I never heard back.
What happened with the job?
As for the cost of a background check... I've gone down to the police station to get a background check done on myself (for jobs) on a few occasions and it only costs $20 or $25... at least in Ontario.
Ask for it from the company, but I would do above. It's cheap, federal and from the actual cops.
Had I gotten pulled over for even a speeding ticket in the SIX MONTHS that they were issued, I would have been arrested, charged with the crime of "Fugitive from Justice" in NH and then extradited to FL, all because of a mistake.
My suggestion to you, is pull a background check on yourself, and find out what the charge is and get it resolved.
See, this is why I have subscribe to a privacy identify protection company. They alert me right away if new lines of credit have been issued or anything criminally has been charged to me. Someone hitting the wrong numbers on a keyboard can fuck you up.