Part II: Time Warner Contractor Arrested on Sexual Abuse Charges
Recently, in Oneonta, New York, a registered sex offender obtained a job with Sure Connect, a company who is a contractor for Time Warner. He allegedly assaulted a woman in her home on June 20, 2008. Subsequently, Time Warner has terminated its contract with Sure Connect and is now requiring notarized certification from its contractors that background checks have been performed.
Stan McGinnis, founder and CEO of Secure Signals International, a company who specializes in "theft of service, internal theft, loss prevention and account fraud solutions with bottom line impact" and who screens potential employees for many contractors of cable companies, sat down with us to offer his insight into background checks and the cable television industry. What follows is the second part of our interview:
"Their [Time Warner] contract employees are obligated to do the same background checks that Time Warner does on their employees, which is supposed to be criminal, driving and a credit report. I'm working on a Time Warner system right now where the contractors have not done any background checks on any of their employees. I fired a contracting group out of a Time Warner system because the contract owner was in prison for drugs and his guys weren't doing their work. I know that system is not following the corporate guidelines of checking criminal history, credit history and driving records. They are supposed to submit an affidavit that they are doing these things. There is a fine line that Time Warner & Comcast are careful not to cross and that is that they can't manage the contractors' employees. Therefore, they don't make the contractors employees by managing too much of their business.
For Time Warner to say that it was not their employee and does not have any effect on them is bogus because any employee of a contractor that gets caught doing something like that...it is always going to reflect poorly on the fact that Time Warner hired this contracting group that hired a bad employee. In Sacramento, California, Comcast missed six felony convictions on a felony rapist by using Kroll because their database wasn't up to date. The employee went out and raped the first customer at home, which happened to be a mentally retarded girl. That case was just settled six months ago and that happened four years ago. Two years ago, in Chicago, Illinois, Comcast had a contractor kill a customer. The police interviewed the installer and let him go. They took some DNA from his shirt, but they didn't process it because they didn't have him as a person of interest. A week later, he killed another customer and then they arrested him.
I've had discussions with Comcast and Time Warner's corporate legal departments. The background checks they perform meet the minimum standard for the minimum cost, which allows for these opportunities to occur in the marketplace. When you look at the case in Sacramento, it went on for four years. The City of Sacramento tried to cancel Comcast franchises and there were city hall meetings. The public relations of that one incident make you ask the rhetorical question, "Wouldn't it be better to get it done right the first time, than to suffer the embarrassment?" It is incredulous to me that we step over dollars to pick up dimes because it is efficient. They want their reports back in 24 hours and we can't do that because the information we need is not readily on a database that is just going to pop up and be correct all the time. We want to be correct on our assessment so it takes time to get a good, accurate report; otherwise, why do the background check at all? Other than that you have some way of mitigating your damages when you get sued in court. This isn't correct, either.
In the Sacramento case where the background check was done by a Kroll database, the Judge said, "You could have used a better service and gotten the right information. You could have known, you should have known, you didn't and so you’re liable." I believe Kroll picked up all the expenses on that on behalf of Comcast. What if a contractor didn't have the means to do that? Aside from that, the damage is already done."
Stan McGinnis, founder and CEO of Secure Signals International, a company who specializes in "theft of service, internal theft, loss prevention and account fraud solutions with bottom line impact" and who screens potential employees for many contractors of cable companies, sat down with us to offer his insight into background checks and the cable television industry. What follows is the second part of our interview:
"Their [Time Warner] contract employees are obligated to do the same background checks that Time Warner does on their employees, which is supposed to be criminal, driving and a credit report. I'm working on a Time Warner system right now where the contractors have not done any background checks on any of their employees. I fired a contracting group out of a Time Warner system because the contract owner was in prison for drugs and his guys weren't doing their work. I know that system is not following the corporate guidelines of checking criminal history, credit history and driving records. They are supposed to submit an affidavit that they are doing these things. There is a fine line that Time Warner & Comcast are careful not to cross and that is that they can't manage the contractors' employees. Therefore, they don't make the contractors employees by managing too much of their business.
For Time Warner to say that it was not their employee and does not have any effect on them is bogus because any employee of a contractor that gets caught doing something like that...it is always going to reflect poorly on the fact that Time Warner hired this contracting group that hired a bad employee. In Sacramento, California, Comcast missed six felony convictions on a felony rapist by using Kroll because their database wasn't up to date. The employee went out and raped the first customer at home, which happened to be a mentally retarded girl. That case was just settled six months ago and that happened four years ago. Two years ago, in Chicago, Illinois, Comcast had a contractor kill a customer. The police interviewed the installer and let him go. They took some DNA from his shirt, but they didn't process it because they didn't have him as a person of interest. A week later, he killed another customer and then they arrested him.
I've had discussions with Comcast and Time Warner's corporate legal departments. The background checks they perform meet the minimum standard for the minimum cost, which allows for these opportunities to occur in the marketplace. When you look at the case in Sacramento, it went on for four years. The City of Sacramento tried to cancel Comcast franchises and there were city hall meetings. The public relations of that one incident make you ask the rhetorical question, "Wouldn't it be better to get it done right the first time, than to suffer the embarrassment?" It is incredulous to me that we step over dollars to pick up dimes because it is efficient. They want their reports back in 24 hours and we can't do that because the information we need is not readily on a database that is just going to pop up and be correct all the time. We want to be correct on our assessment so it takes time to get a good, accurate report; otherwise, why do the background check at all? Other than that you have some way of mitigating your damages when you get sued in court. This isn't correct, either.
In the Sacramento case where the background check was done by a Kroll database, the Judge said, "You could have used a better service and gotten the right information. You could have known, you should have known, you didn't and so you’re liable." I believe Kroll picked up all the expenses on that on behalf of Comcast. What if a contractor didn't have the means to do that? Aside from that, the damage is already done."
Labels: background checks, cable companies, criminal database, employee background checks, time warner
posted by JenWiehl at 9:12 AM
7 Comments:
I completely agree with Stan, what is the point of spending less to get a less accurate report. It is really interesting to see his side of these issues.
This is uber disturbing! How can comcast use any justification that may allow occurances like this to continue happening? I was thinking of signing up with them for internet service, but now I'm not so sure.
This really creeps me out...and I hope I am not alone next time I have to wait for the cable guy. The cable guy should only be creepy in Jim Carey movies. Cable companies shouldn't send deviants into the homes of their customers, its immoral!
Kroll may have picked up the cost, but probably only because Comcast is a huge customer. They probably would've let most small businesses eat the cost. Which is sad, really. They should use county hand searches, an obvious industry standard.
That's so scary! I've always been timid when any type of service person is alone with me at home, but now I have even more reason to be alarmed! I will especially make sure that no one from Comcast comes in my house while I'm alone! It seems that such a large corporation would have higher standards for screening their employees.
At least someone out in this market is willing to preach to imperatives of a thorough background check. How many times are we gonna keep reading about a quick-thrills database search gone terribly wrong?
At least this guy you're interviewing is willing to preach about through background checking. I mena, how many more times do we have to hear about some quick-fix bargain basement check gone terribly wrong?
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