Often those who are seeking a state license, for example, are told that prior to receiving the license they must first submit to an FBI background check. Usually in order for this to be processed, it also means that they need to be fingerprinted, as that is the basis of the FBI background check.
An FBI Identification Record, will be rendered to the employer or licensing authority. This record is sometimes referred to as a rap sheet, or as a Criminal History Record. It will list assorted information that is taken from any fingerprint submissions as held by the FBI in association with arrests and occasionally military service, naturalization or federal employment.
At any time the fingerprints are correlated to an arrest, then the record of the reorganization will include the name(s) of the agency that consigned those fingerprints to the FBI, as well as including the arrest charges, the date of arrest, and the ultimate disposition of the arrest, if it is known to the FBI. All of the arrest data that is included in an Identification Record will have been obtained solely from disposition reports ,any fingerprint submissions, and other reports turned in by agencies that have some sort of criminal justice responsibilities.
Many people believe, erroneously, that an FBI Background Check will show a prospective employer or the state licensing board, dark secrets held by the FBI on them. Remember again that it is only your history of arrests, your RAP sheet, as it were. No more, no less.

Some people are also worried if they have had various juvenile arrests, for example for statutory rape. Or, they might believe that those particular records have been actually totally expunged, and thus juvenile arrests will definitely not show up on an FBI Identification Record. The truth of the matter is if you were ever fingerprinted for anything, it will show up on the FBI Background Check, though it may show a disposition of expungement, for instance.

Over and over again, people have “fallen for” various things offered for free on the Internet. There are free offers for email address lookups, free credit reports, free telephone ring tones being marketed via television, but mostly online. Part of the reason why Snopes, an urban legends reference site, is so popular is that so many people believe that anything on the Net can be taken at face value.

Let’s put it this way, no company can survive when offering everything for free, now can it? Those free ring tones, for example, when looked at carefully are actually getting you to pay for them. Not only do you have to pay for them, but also invariably you find that you will pay for them on a monthly basis!

The same can be said of free criminal background checks. If you use one of these, consistently what you find is that while they do send you some information about the person, it is often totally devoid of any detail you are searching for. To get further detail you will have to pay for it. Prices for such information vary widely, of course, and at times there are also scams involved.

Rather than point your cursor at a free criminal check, and possibly get scammed, it would be much safer to use a paid professional criminal records check. Unfortunately, the free criminal background checks can be filed under the “you get what you pay for” category.

The other side of the coin too, is that you have a legitimate reason why you wish to run a criminal background check on someone. Perhaps it is that you are going to be dating an unknown who was found for you at an online date site? Maybe you are looking into hiring a nanny for your children and want to make sure they do not have an arrest record for child abuse? Or you may be looking for a house sitter or at home dog sitter while you go away to Europe for 30 days? Imagine putting yourself in that position and having relied on a “free” criminal background check?