I thought I would share this interesting artical i found with you!
The following is an article courtesy of Warren Ryan from E-Background Check.

Let's start off with a story. It's fictionalized, but it shows how important background checking can be when you're getting into a relationship with someone.

After years of searching for Mr. Right, Joan thought she'd finally found him. She met Ken through a singles ad in the Washingtonian Magazine. The first date had gone great, and they'd been seeing each other every weekend for a month.

What was most amazing to Joan was the fact that Ken seemed to be interested in just about all the things she was. He loved to dance and was a terrific dancer. He was fanatical about country music--just like she was--and sometimes they'd spend a whole evening just listening to Garth Brooks CDs and cuddling on the sofa in his apartment. He never pressured her for sex but, somehow, it almost always happened, and he was a very gentle, tender lover.

With so much going for him, Joan was really bowled over when Ken let her in on a secret--he was about to become rich!

Ken offhandedly told Joan he'd recently been notified that he'd inherited a sizable estate in suburban Maryland, near Washington, D.C., from his grandfather. As soon as all the probate details were settled he'd come into an inheritance of almost two million dollars.

Ken wanted Joan to share his good fortune and his life, he said. He'd never loved anyone this much before, he said, or felt so close to anyone, or been so comfortable with anyone. He was sure Joan felt the same way. He wanted them to elope, to get married right away. What did it matter that they'd only known one another for a month? They were in love--why wait?

"Joan," he said, "let's fly to Vegas this weekend and just do it. Let's get married now!" Joan agreed to this idea immediately.

She was so ecstatic that she couldn't resist telling her co-worker and best friend Rhonda about her plans at lunch the next day.

Rhonda, however, didn't share her enthusiasm; in fact, her friend was extremely skeptical. "Ken just seems too good to be true," Rhonda said. And she knew what that meant. It meant he probably was too good to be true. She decided to do a little background checking on her friend Joan's new fianc?.

Being a savvy lady who'd once worked as an office manager at a private investigation firm, Rhonda knew how to run a quick background check on too-good-to-be-true Ken and see if anything jumped out at her.

First, as she told Joan, she needed a couple identifying facts about Ken to get her started. Joan supplied Ken's full name (Ken Ballaban) and address (132 Anderson St., Washington DC 20004).

The first thing Rhonda did was simply to check the Washington DC phone book. Surprise. There was no Ken Ballaban listed on Anderson St. And the telephone number he'd given Joan didn't work--it just rang and rang.

Rhonda decided to dig deeper. Lacking her own computer, she visited a local public library and used one of theirs to access the Internet. The first website she dialed up was http://www.anywho.com. She plugged in Ken's name on a form provided by the website and then hit "enter" on the keyboard. The library computer immediately produced a telephone number. Guess what, it was completely different from the one Ken had given Joan. It was not even local, it was in Albany, New York.

Rhonda then typed into anywho.com the phone number Ken had said was his and the computer produced another interesting bit of info. It was a pay phone. No wonder nobody ever answered there.

Something was definitely up. Rhonda was now sure there was more--or more likely, less--to Ken than he wanted Joan to know about.

Rhonda went out in the lobby of the library and dialed Ken's real phone number in Albany. A young woman answered.

"Hello."

"I'd like to speak to Ken Ballaban," said Rhonda.

"Who is this?" said the female voice.

Rhonda knew if she told the truth she'd likely get nowhere--so she did what private eyes do in this situation; she lied (they call it "using a pretext").

"This is his aunt," said Rhonda. We've had a death in the family and I need to contact him right away. He's come into some money."

The female voice became suddenly very interested. "How much money?"

"I can't say," said Rhonda. "Probably a fair amount. Is this his wife?"

"Yes, I'm his wife. I don't know where he is. I haven't seen him in six months, and he owes me for child support."

"Owes you for child support?"

"Yes, ma'am. He hasn't paid me a dime in almost a year. I've got the police on him."

"Is that a fact!"

"Listen, if that two-timing, drug-pushing lowlife comes into an inheritance, I want my money. Who'd you say died?"

"Uh, never mind, but if I locate him, I'll let you know," said Rhonda. She hung up.

Rhonda could have let it go at that. She'd already uncovered enough of Ken's true self to set off alarm bells, but since she was already at the library, she decided to dig a little deeper. She went back to the computer and did some more Internet research.

Using a few of the online resources described in this manual, she quickly pulled up some very startling information about Ken. She found he was being sued for fraud in three states. And his driver's license had been revoked for drunk driving. And he was not 31, like he'd told Joan; he was actually 42.

Rhonda got a printout of this information and, the next day at lunch, told Joan the whole story, that Ken was already married, that he had children, that he was 42, that he was a drug-pusher and two-timer (or so his wife said), a con-man, and a liar. She watched the blood drain out of Joan's face. For a minute she was afraid her friend was about to fall off her chair!

Joan was terribly shocked and disgusted and disappointed but she knew she'd averted a terrible mistake. In tears, she called up Ken. He slammed down the phone and then simply disappeared. She never heard from him again.

Over the next couple days--just out of curiosity--Rhonda did a little more checking. By using the Internet again and doing a little legwork at the county courthouse checking files she found out even more about Ken--

1. He'd been dishonorably discharged from the Air Force for beating up a fellow enlisted man.

2. Although he'd told Joan he was a Trinity University graduate, in fact Trinity University had no record of him.

3. He was wanted in New York on bigamy and check-kiting charges.

Ken is an extreme case, of course. But even so, you may be stunned to find out how different someone you've met is in reality from the person he seems to be!

What usually prompts a woman to run a background on a lover or fianc?? "The reason most people come to me [for background investigations] in the first place," says Private Investigator Ed Pankau, "is that somewhere in their being a warning bell has gone off. Their mind tells them something their heart doesn't want to listen to and whispers to them in the dark that all is not as it seems?Considering all the cases in which I've checked out personal relationships, I'd say almost 70 percent of the people I investigated hid something, major or minor, from their potential mate...Small lies I consider normal, and I tell my clients this is to be expected... However, every so often, I run across people who can really hurt you, the ones you need to watch out for--the sociopaths and pathological liars who prey on the single set. How bad can they hurt you? Very bad."

What's the moral of all this? Don't wait for a warning bell to go off. Don't wait for your mind to tell you something your heart doesn't want to listen to. Before dating a stranger...before getting seriously involved with someone... and, especially before marrying a man, any man...check him out!