All Forum Posts by: Ariel O.

Don't forget that it's really easy to forge a w-2 and a bank statement too.

Only ways to really guarantee those is transcripts via the IRS-4506T or real time bank verification

SSN might be similar name but not the same date of birth - usually a relative without a record.

AKAs pop up on a tenant screening <- you will often find most of the evictions under AKA.

Address history doesn't make sense, or a lot of moving around, or doesn't match what you can find in the screening.

If you use BeenVerified.com, and the tenant finds out, get ready for one hell of an FCRA law suit that you will lose. Also see here http://www.beenverified.com/dos-donts

 The data will always only show some of the picture. There has to be some sort of real due diligence involved. Do you call the previous landlord, or the landlord previous to that one?

Do you verify employment or income? Either with a W2, bank statements or a phone call?

The eviction databases are dependent on access to county judgments. A judgment has to be entered into the court system before it propagates. In places like NYC they have people matching names to files, all day long. But if the eviction never reaches the point where a judgment is entered, it just won't happen. 

Relying solely on a credit score and database doesn't really work by itself, it has to be part of a larger process.

I would just add that if you're really paranoid there are ways of screening international students, but it's obscenely expensive. The only thing I might add to ask for is a contact person at the university you could use as leverage/recommendation

@Steve Babiak 

This is a known issue with eviction records, criminal records, etc. The states have removed a lot of the identifiers (last 4 of SSN, date of birth) from the records, for privacy reasons. So now you have just name matches and maybe zip/state matches at best. Makes it real easy to get sued and get the wrong data. Ideally you use a screening company that does the post-verification for you, or you're aware of it and do it yourself, like you did.

@Andrey Y. 

 You're lucky, I guess. As a property owner/manager you want to make sure your tenant can pay the rent and won't cause trouble, among many other concerns that Steve Rosenberg alluded to. You need to be able to verify that in some way. Could it be that either you're a statistical anomaly OR Hawaii is more of a small town type market? (That could be my NY bias creeping in).

In any event @Elizabeth Colegrove hit the nail on the head (although she knows I am not a huge fan of the buildium/mysmartmove process, heh). You need to put them through the "ringer" on the front end, make sure they are who they say they are, have the money, and aren't known to cause problems. Especially in the more tenant friendly states it's a MUST, otherwise you're stuck with them forever. Also the process itself discourages a lot of the people you don't want in the first place.

@John D.  - Is it cash like under the table cash, or cash like 1099/not a steady job/biz owner type cash? Are they "unbankable" or just not salaried? I'm just curious because if it's the second type (just no w2), they're are a ton of ways to verify that income/cash, but if it's under the table, how do you know it's going to keep coming in? 

The reason the PI had such a success is that he got access to data sources that only work with "the trade". But I need a little bit more context to send you in the right direction.

A long time ago I had one of my VA's price this all out, Miami was up there with 10-15% ROI, but it comes down to location and yields. You might talk to a few of the people who have multiple listings. I can send you the file if you're interested, it's 2 years old though.

Happy Bday Josh!

John

The fraud alert is worthless. A lot of companies just don't pay attention to it.

 Stop whatever you are doing and put a "credit freeze" on all 3 of your reports. This will make some things annoying as you won't be able to apply for new loans/ccs without "unfreezing" the report, but it will stop 90% of the fraudulent activity in its tracks.

The FTC has all the info and links for you: http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-f...

Make sure to do it at all 3 (Experian, transunion, equifax)

Also, have the attorney pay for a credit monitoring service, and tell him he's going to have to reimburse you for time lost.