Criminal record was clean.

From our website:Poor screening often results in lost rents, legal & court costs and costly damages.Screening of applicants includes the following:Full credit/eviction/criminal checks are done, instead of score-driven reportsVerification of rental history includes validation of actual property owner to avoid fraudVerification of stability of income & employment via YTD paystubs & W-2(s) (analyzed to confirm not fakes)Income is calculated 3 ways to spot stability anomalies: pay period, YTD average and YTD + W-2 average.Debt-to-income analysis (more accurate than traditional 3x rent requirement)Bank statement to see if NSF issues, if deposits support income, prove MoveIn Funds, also analyzed for unusual transactions.Pet screeningHolding Fee required from approved applicants to make sure they are serious, before your property is marked pending.

You pre-screen on the phone by informing them of your screening standards, employment, income, credit, criminal  etc. and make it crystal clear there are no exceptions.

But apparently that law also states that the rule does not ' allow landlords to charge applicants for credit reports obtained from local or regional consumer information databases, credit  brokers, resellers, criminal background checks, reference checks, and sources of other  personal information not contained in one of the three listed national credit repositories."

Hi @Dylan Succa the other popular one is the TransUnion SmartMove product, however that includes an eviction and criminal search so it costs more at $25 or $35 depending on the options you select.  

Can anyone recommend a FCRA approved service where you can get all in one report - criminal / background and credit checks for a reasonable price?

High-tech criminals put a great deal of work and planning into this."

It's understandable to be skeptical of this applicant since he didn't mention anything about the criminal records.

I would say if you are going the project manager route, then background check them, get references, criminal history, financials, everything you can.  

This means we definitely conduct formal background checks with credit scores and criminal histories but we also factor in their personality, their sincerity, their facebook account activity, and we go through references with a fine tooth comb.