One in Four People Have a Fake Social Media Profile Somewhere

Can you really trust anyone? Background checks aren’t quite the norm yet even in all forms of business, but they’re getting there. And based on how much people admit they’ll lie to get a residence, a job, or a date, maybe that’s a good thing.

In a new blog post, A Secure Life—which helps people find security systems—wrote up the results of a 500-person poll conducted in September 2019 via Pollfish. People who were self-employed or unable to work weren’t eligible.

Credit: A Secure Life

The chart above, delving into the percentage of lies told, show the tip of the iceberg. That 26 percent of people have created at least one fake social media profile is bad enough, even though it’s not a huge shock. But the lies on dating profiles, job applications, resumes, and housing applications show people are desperate to get what they want.

Related: How a Digital Detox Saved My Career

The results of the poll also dig into how much background checks are being used to combat this culture of lies. For example, 2 percent of respondents said they’d done a background check on themselves to get started. Four percent have done them on a spouse or partner; another 4 percent backgrounded a potential date.

Also, 38.4 percent of respondents have gone so far as to do a background check on someone using a public sex-offender registry website. The majority did it to check up on a neighborhood, school, or workplace; but about 22 percent were checking a specific person.

Another 56 percent said their employer either “definitely” or “probably” ran a check on them, and while that’s a majority, 11.8 percent said their employers definitely or probably did not run a check. The numbers go down a bit on background checks as the employee ages—those over age 55 said they definitely got backgrounded only 40.7 percent of the time.

Related: Top 5 Not-So-Obvious Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Must Avoid

The highest percentage of background checks happen to those age 25 to 34—respondents said 73.6 percent of them had definitely been checked. Across all ages, 10.7 percent of them claimed employers received inaccurate info on them in a background check. Among those who did a background check on themselves, 92 percent said they received inaccurate info. Time to go check your credit reports, folks.

Read the post for more as well as to see A Secure Life’s top recommendations for the best background check companies. And read PCMag’s Best Employment Background Check Services.