Criminal record expunged? That doesn't mean it's not available on private sector databases
Just because an individual’s criminal record is expunged doesn’t necessarily eliminate it from credit reports.
Helen Stokes found that out the hard way, when her rental application was rejected due to Pennsylvania arrests in 2008 and 2010 concerning disputes with her estranged husband, reports the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.).
The 63-year-old filed a federal lawsuit earlier this year under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, seeking damages for third-party background reports to potential landlords that allegedly claimed her arrests were still on the record.
With nearly one-third of the adults in the nation on the FBI’s criminal database after an increase in the number of laws and law enforcement officers in recent decades, such suits are on the rise, the newspaper says.
Part of the problem is that in most states (Pennsylvania, ironically, is an exception) there is no provision for notifying credit-reporting agencies about expunged criminal records.
