Sterling, A First Advantage Company Reviews 3,965

Worse experience ever for a basic DBS check. I have submitted my form on 31.10.2025 and still haven’t received anything related to the check. I have reached out to support and they keep saying “it was escalated to our internal team”. But nothing has been done. They say 24h to 48h for them to reach out but nothing. Very frustrating and very disappointing service…

Worst experience ever. I had gone through a number of background checks over the years, never had a slightest issue.
First time I’m being vetted by Sterling - they keep coming back for more information. Just got another email from them: their concern that dates of my rentals overlap! Yes, guess what? It happens! Some people allow themselves a few days to be on a safe side during house move!

If it was in my control I don't even put a one star on that company, this company is nightmare, they are taking ages to see the documents and there are not even proper response to that and there is no proper even a website, these people are disgusting who are handling this business,like waste of time , it's been more than a month my documents are still there on pending and they don't even respond, we should crackdown against these kind of contractors, that are sitting in Asian countries and destroying the time of people and mind peace

Received a random email from a company I'd never heard of requesting a series of personal information it would be a very bad idea to pass out to a stranger. Turns out it was sterling, but using a different company name. Absolutely bizarre interaction, told them to sod off.

The most incompetent company I've ever dealt with. The verification process is a joke. They're unable to verify anything except the most basic cases - they can't even find the foreign university website to check my diploma. The communication is insanely slow - it takes them 10 days to respond only to ask me the same question which I've already answered previously. Complete waste of time.

No words to describe the idiocy of these fools! Responses rubbish, initiative rubbish and the idiotic emails I received are clearly AI as the wording was laughable.

Sterling only started contacting me for information after two weeks. I have international employment experience in Hong Kong, and they didn’t know that Hong Kong and Mainland China are two separate jurisdictions governed by different authorities. After a long delay, they incorrectly asked me for Government ID from Mainland China. They were also unable to verify a well-known company in the U.S. They tried to call my former manager but couldn’t reach her because she had immigrated. And just because of that, they flagged my prior experience as unverifiable.

The biggest pile of rubbish that ever existed
Had previously submitted my documents for DBS check before a buy out of Deliveroo, all my existing documents miraculously disappeared and am being forced to use a system that cannot even recognise a UK postcode
Rubbish rubbish rubbish

Worst ever experience. I had already supplied a lot of the information required to my prospective employer. Then had to upload a lot of this information into the Sterling program. The process took 3 hours initially. I am certain they had all the information they required. Then more emails and requests followed to the point of harassment. I am still receving emails demanding information I know I have supplied. Honestly this process is supposed to streamline the vetting process but honestly it has made it harder.

Over a month to get references sorted. They had limited understanding of contractors and writing to accountants etc for references. They have written to banks I’ve worked for, umbrella companies, agents who got me the contracts, (well they said they have but when I call them they say they had no emails at all from this company) HMRC information PAYE given and they are saying I’m not cooperating and now want bank statements. I’ve ruled out joining a pension company on permanent basis as it’s been 4 weeks and they are still nowhere near getting references done.

The most dreadful and infuriating platform ever! Absolutely nerve wracking! The user journey is horrible, the form is spectacularly bad (no error message, it doesn't save, it blocks you, you don't know why...). So then, trying to call many times yet the line doesn't even work!!!

Such a crappy experience. I've never felt so upset. I have no clue as to why these people are in business with such a crappy software they use for their app. Makes it impossible to enter dates and the names of employers. The only way I managed to submit a damn thing is by lying just to get past their stupid flags.

On top of all that, when you call their customer service number; they say please reach back at normal business hours. It's 10:40 Am! What the hell is wrong with you people?

Trust that Trust Pilot. I swear by Heaven's footstool and by God himself that my experience has been an absolutely atrocious one.

Checking on this company after my own horrible experiences, I wasn’t surprised to find that it is popular specifically because it costs less for client companies than most of their competition. However, bottom-dollar usually comes with bottom-of-the barrel quality, and companies need to recognize that before signing on with Sterling. — In my recent experience with two of their service sites for background checks and information verification, I found that accurate data entry is nowhere near the Sterling strengths, as they’ll literally list a college course completion as being 5 years before you even started attendance. Or past employers will be listed with dates up to TWENTY YEARS off! Trying to enter or correct info is a nightmare, with site connectivity/ operation simply dropping if you hit the “Next” tab at the bottom of page. And, as if their site being slower than dial-up internet weren’t bad enough, you may have to enter and re-enter the SAME data 6 or 7 times before it finally saves.
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Oh, and customer service? There is none, as everything is automated, including their listed phone support service. You’re looking at a minimum of two days response, usually just in the form of a new link sent for your info entry process. (Yes, their site drops you — only on 2-3 pages into their 22-page required process — and then you can’t automatically get back into it.) So, the “twenty minutes” their site says it will take at the start is really more like 8 hours of the most frustrating and slow website design you’ll ever encounter. Literally, it takes longer to finish their required online data entry than it takes for them to collect your background results… which will be wrong because you couldn’t fully enter or edit your info on time.
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And, it doesn't get any better after that, as the rest of the Sterling processes on other sites/ links will also be bad. Like where you’re asked to enter citizenship, you won’t find the United States or the United Kingdom among their options. Just entering a telephone number, finding your country code is difficult, and then you have to enter the area and the actual telephone number all in separate (slow) data boxes. And, OMG, just avoid entering dates if you can, because the site won’t let you just TYPE a date, instead giving a calendar for the current month… and making you go backwards month-by-month to provide a date.
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Think about that. You going to enter your 30-year old wife’s date-of-birth in such a system?
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Absolutely, the worst system I’ve ever seen… and I been around since before the internet.
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I'll give 2 stars because the India / Philippines support staff are courteous. I received an email advising me that the check was done and I requsted a copy because I've discovered errors in the past. 7 calls later, still nothing. 24 hours they keep saying. They sent an unrelated document to me as well, which had nothing to do with the background screen. It creates incredible stress when one is scheduled to begin a new job very soon.

My background check has been going on for almost a month. I have received around twenty TWENTY requests for documents, also for documents I already sent. My passport photo (always the same) was ok then it was not then it was ok again. My bar association badge was not “a valid document to prove I was a lawyer”. Then there was a gap in my employment but in my declaration there was no gap at all. Then they asked me for the payslips of my last employer ALL FOURBYEARS WORTH OF payslips. To this request I refused to give any additional proof as two days before I even sent an official statement of the social security stating that I was still working for my current employer and providing a start date of said employment.
Ridiculous, long, unprofessional. They deal with high profile candidates who do have not the time to deal with their useless requests

Terrible service, workers can barley string a complete sentence together. Constantly asking for information already provided. Never had such an issue trying to get a background check. I dont understand how there's any delivery drivers if everyone has to use this horrendous service. Easier applying for universal credit

Sterling was hired by my employer to run a background check, but still required me to manually enter all my information. Despite multiple written requests, they’ve been completely unresponsive in providing a copy of my report. For a company whose sole job is background checks, and is required to provide one copy / year, this is pretty poor behavior.

If I could give it negative stars I would.

What a horrendous company. The application flow is terrible. They haven't heard of docusign or any other pdf signing solution and instead ask you to print out things and scan them back in. Further more the UX of their application is atrocious. No multi-upload for files ensuring that we have to use some sort of PDF tool to compose the documents.

The upload forms have the worst UX possible without loading states or anything to give it a good accessibility score... Good luck if you're vision impaired and need a job.

And then when they do ask for extra documents its all via several automated emails. All in different threads. Can't they keep all communication in one location?

They also expect me to pay to get my own background check form from a foreign country that I lived in. Are you mad?

And I've had the privilege to deal with these clowns twice now. If I ask them if they can access my previous applications details to confirm certain details.

If they can that proves that they did not honour my wishes to have my previous details removed from their databases since I've given them more than enough details to impersonate me twice over. If they don't and they do have it that proves they give nothing about supplying a service.

The worst part is that I as a person who has to interact with this service have no leg to stand on because they act on behalf of the company I wish to join and therefor my feedback will probably be thrown in the bin.

This company can't go bankrupt fast enough and do the world a big favour.

negative 5 stars. Revolting process.

Simple background check and fingerprint, but you get to fingerprint section of platform and you are stuck. Says to schedule appointment, but says not available online, when you call place, they say the only way to schedule is online. In addition they send you to places way too far away, there are dozens of fingerprint, UPS store facilities in my area that do the work. Been chatting online for hours with some lady from another country that takes 5-10 minutes to respond each time. 35 minutes to find my record. Useless

Lost my documents 3 times - asking for repeating information -

The first time they delayed my hiring because they lost my documents 'technical error' -

The second time went through fine - I was hired and have been for the last 6 months.

Now they have contacted me again saying they need my documents again due to a 'technical fault'

I AM HERE ! I HAVE CLEARANCE !

Useless company. They need to check themselves before they should be allowed to check anyone else.

Update - after being told I would not be bothered by them anymore (in fact I've been working at the company in question for 6 months now) they are still harassing me for information that j have already given them multiple times. This is all dare and time stamped on email.

Their incompetency knows no bounds.