Four pages rank above ours when people search for the company behind a background check. We read each one and put it beside ours. Every cell is what the page itself shows a reader.
Read September 16, 2026. Rival cells describe what each page shows; the pages are linked in the table and listed at the foot, so you can check every cell yourself.
| Site | What you get | Price | A measured number | Names the deadline | Names a public data source | A date on the page | A person to write to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screening Facts (this site) | A free explainer of your rights, a deadline calculator that runs in your browser, and the dispute route for each company. Nothing to buy. | Free, no account. | Complaint counts per company from the federal CFPB database, and how many closed with relief. | Yes | Yes | A checked date on every page. | hello@getaxionlabs.com, read by one person. |
| Consumer Law Firm | A law firm that takes background check error cases. | No fee unless they win. | Site-wide client and settlement totals, not on this page. | Yes | No | None. | An intake form and a phone number. |
| Consumer Attorneys | An article on turnaround times, backed by a law firm's intake. | No out-of-pocket fees. | Site-wide totals on the home page only. | No | No | A last-updated line, over a year old when we read it. | Email, phone and a form. |
| Sterling, now First Advantage | The screening company's own corporate home page. | None for consumers. | Its own scale figures, not complaint outcomes. | No | No | A copyright year. | A form and a consumer portal. |
| TransUnion SmartMove | A landlord's tenant-screening product page. | A landlord-paid package price on the page. | A satisfaction claim from an older survey. | No | No | A copyright year. | A dispute portal link. |
Our number. Here is the one number that tells you which route is worth your evening. 10,333 complaints about six specialty screening companies reached the federal regulator in twelve months, and not one of them was closed with any relief for the person who complained. Over the same twelve months, on the same regulator, Equifax closed 46% of the complaints it closed with relief and TransUnion 42%. So a complaint to the regulator is not the thing that moves this. The clock is, and the clock is in the statute.
Where they beat us: the two law firms will take a case, on contingency, and we never will. The two companies at the bottom are the screeners themselves; their portals are where a dispute is actually lodged. We tell you the record and the deadline; they hold the file.
Find the company behind your report
If a cell is wrong, or a page has changed since we read it, write to hello@getaxionlabs.com and we will correct it and re-date the page.
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