Quote Quoting cdwjava
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Private companies often get their public records from different sources than the state might. The state's records might reflect the true resolution, but the other record - possibly obtained through jail booking records, police records, or initial court filings - could reflect the original charge and not the ultimate outcome.
The biggest part of the problem is that by and large, there is little or no regulation of private background check companies. Therefore, there is little incentive for them to ensure that the records they provide to their clients are factually correct. Basically, to them collecting criminal records information is simply data mining. They go in and collect information on new cases, but do not review old cases to see if the record has been changed or updated. People with this same type of problem contact our court clerk's Criminal Department on a regular basis.

Actually, the latter may help more than you may think-especially presenting a certified copy of the record. It may prevent your application from being immediately removed from consideration and can certainly help any argument that you may wish to make when they see a difference between the commercially provided report and the official record.