(name removed)

Is there a way to do a back round check on this guy.

I was looking to hire this person to do some work for me but I wanted to make sure I wasn't taking on an axe murderer or something.

I'd venture a guess that this might not be the best of means to do so...

I was looking to hire this person to do some work for me but I wanted to make sure I wasn't taking on an axe murderer or something.

You could obtain the person's written consent to run a background check, or require him to provide you one, via OSBI. You can run free db searches, though if you only have a name you have some work ahead of you to separate wheat from chaff and it is possible to get it wrong.

You can check with the references he provided. How they answer may be way more important than what they actually say. Generally few if anyone will hesitate to say what a great worker and person X was when that's the case about X. If the response is far more guarded and stiffly formal, it may indicate only a controlled process or there may be a rather sound reason they are so tight lipped and hesitant.

Looking back over the years, I don't recall ever having to talk myself into a good hiring decision. There have been a couple where in retrospect I should have talked to myself a bit less.

http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/casesearch.asp

Make sure you have the correct middle name or birthdate, etc. The one listed on OSCN doesn't look good but this may be a different person.

Thanks Chuck,you may have just saved me a big potential problem.
Thanks again.

Thanks Chuck,you may have just saved me a big potential problem.
Thanks again.

I hope this works for you but, if it comes up again, remember that there is absolutely no reason to post someone's real or legal name here without their knowledge. That could be dangerous for various reasons.

I don't get the over abundance of caution about putting a person's name on a thread when the purpose clearly seems to be that the person in question is some sort of contract laborer. I can see not allowing posting names simply to post gossip. But if someone is promoting themselves as a laborer to come into your home and do work, would they not want you to feel secure with them and would we not want to provide information relevant to the inquiry if we had any information?

The first place I go when looking to hire an individual is Angie's List and some Google searches.

I personally don't see an issue with a post similar to this thread starter that goes something like this..... "I'm looking to get some jobs done around my home and found a guy named John Doe who lives in SW OKC that claims he is proficient at such jobs. He's a sole proprietor one man operation, so I'm having trouble getting any reviews or independent references. Anyone here ever use this guy?"

What's the big deal?

FYI - you don't need to get permission to do a background check on someone (unless you're trying to pull their credit). I'm hired all the time to do background checks on everything from significant others, employees to jurors.

The difference here is that the question wasn't about the person's ability to do the work, it was whether or not he's an "axe murderer".

This wasn't posted in the Local Business forum, it's the general forum and was a general question about a particular individual. If the real issue was how to do a background check, that question has been answered.