How do companies verify new drivers 3 years of employment history

I have an old DAC report on me that I got a copy from almost 18 years ago. There are 3 old employers on there that I know for a fact don't report to DAC. Two are no longer in business and the 3rd was the Recovery Company I worked for. I don't know how they got that information, but in my case they did.

 

Our process:

1st pull DAC and PSP. Compare dates found to application dates listed. See if DOT numbers from other companies not listed appear on PSP.
Then start verifying contact information for other companies listed.
Use Tenstreet Exchange to verify employment with providers set up on their system. Network is the best, Fax works (but not very informative), all other methods within yield no information.
Call each company that had yet to be verified to get a fax number or email to send the request. Occasionally you'll get the one O/O with 2 or 3 trucks who has no real system in place for verification, so I break out the telephonic verification form and fill it out based on the answers he gives over the phone.

Generally this process only takes a couple man-hours to complete, unless its a guy who bounced between a dozen small-time employers. Sometimes I am chasing my tail trying to locate a company that either does not or no longer exist. You aren't DQ because of that, but I document my time and effort to show during any audits that I made a more than reasonable attempt to contact them all.

 

M,
You are spot-on about this being on of the most misunderstood processes in driver qualification. There are many parts, some mandatory and some a matter of company policy, with those policies designed to protect themselves form lawsuits.

For the OP, there is no rule that a company must use a background service to verify employment. The larger companies usually do while the smaller one's do it themselves with a fax, email and/or phone call. Many companies go above and beyond what is required. Example, 391.23 only requires the motor carrier to investigate the safety performance history with DOT regulated employers within the previous three year period however most carriers investigate all employers and periods of unemployment to protect themselves from negligent hiring lawsuits. Collection of the three and ten year employer history is still mandatory but investigation inquiries are only required to be submitted to DOT regulated employers. Now, most employers will verify employment history, character (like abandoned loads/equipment) and experience, but they don't have to go beyond safety performance history to be compliant.

Also worth noting, with the Clearinghouse being fully operational and three years old now, drug and alcohol inquiries are no longer required to be submitted to previous employers for CDL drivers, only Clearinghouse queries are required. Now, other safety performance history such as verifying accidents and such is still required to be asked of previous employers, so a paper form is still required to be submitted. Also, any crashes within the three year period must be investigated and the employer listed on the application for that period must be asked about their crash investigations. Now, since many trucking companies do a poor job of sending these SPH verifications back, a motor carrier only needs to document a good faith attempt to complete these investigations, which is usually making three attempts to contact the previous employer(s).