Employee Fraud Becomes an Added Concern for Today’s Small Businesses

As if the slow economy wasn’t already enough for small business to deal with, they now have to keep a closer watch over their employees.  According to the Wall Street Journal, employee theft, fraud, and other crimes are rising among small businesses.  They attribute this to the struggling economy, saying that when employees struggle, they turn to their workplace for fast cash.

One business owner in particular, owner of Page and Palette Inc., found that vendors would no longer extend her credit for books her struggling store was running low on.  At first, she assumed it was because of the economy.  Months later, she found that her bookkeeper had been using company money to pay for their personal spending.  After $150,000 in discovered losses, the employee was charged with 25 counts of forgery.  If this kind of activity goes unnoticed long enough, employers like this either have to shut down their businesses or reduce their workforce.  Ultimately, this hurts the business and all of its employees. 

Many employees who give in to this kind of temptation have done it in the past.  While some employers do require background checks to prevent hiring criminals, small businesses don’t tend to spend money in this regard.  They might find however that by investing in comprehensive criminal background checks, they could save more by not losing as much to criminals they’ve unknowingly hired.

Small businesses already using background checks, but who have missed criminal activity among their employees could find it surprising that their current checks only use one database or do not seek crimes committed out of state.   By expanding procedures to include affordable products that have national focus like backgroundchecks.com's US OneSEARCH, they can prevent hiring employees convicted of crimes like fraud and theft whether in or out of the state.  They might also consider including US AliasSEARCH in case a potential hire has changed names.

Small businesses would be wise to partner with comprehensive background check companies like backgroundchecks.com for employement background screening.   As a leader in the criminal data aggregation industry, we have over 12 years of experience bringing together the information businesses need and currently offer instant database searches providing you access to over 300 million records from more than 600 sources.  Although we do serve Fortune 500 firms, we certainly can create flexible plans for small business budgets too, offering a variety of packages that allow any company to hire only the kind of employees that will help their business grow.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123501158460619143.html