How it works
You add a candidate. We get their consent, contact the referees — the ones they nominate, or the ones you entered — chase the ones who go quiet, and run five checks on each reply. The report reaches you minutes after the last referee answers — with the evidence behind every result, so you can judge it yourself.
6 minutes
from the last reply to the report, in the example check.
There is nothing to wait for except the referee
All five checks are automated: the Companies House record, the domain and mail records, the comparison of two sets of dates, and the sender checks on the reply itself. None of it queues, and none of it is read by hand. So the report is not a next-morning turnaround — it is produced within about fifteen minutes of the final reply landing.
- last reply received
- 30 Jul 2026 19:41
- report issued
- 30 Jul 2026 19:47
Four steps, and you are only in the first one
- Step 1
You raise a check
Candidate name, email and role. No CV — and referees only if you already hold them.
- Step 2
The candidate consents
They confirm who we may contact, and nominate up to ten referees unless you named them.
- Step 3
Referees respond
A short mobile questionnaire. The five checks run behind it.
- Step 4
The report is issued
Minutes after the last reply. Each result with its evidence, plus a timestamped activity trail.
Five checks on every referee, and the evidence under each one
Each check runs against every referee and produces a result plus the line of evidence it came from. The lines below are real evidence from the sample check.
Read the whole sample report- 01
Referee email
Whether the referee’s email address belongs to the employer they claim.
The address is compared with the employer given. We look up the domain’s mail records and how long it has been registered. A free webmail address, a disposable domain, or a domain registered weeks ago is reported as such — with the address shown.
- domain
- meadowbrookcare.co.uk · registered 19 years ago
- 02
Employer record
Whether the employer exists, is active, and whether the referee is an officer if they claim to be.
Checked against Companies House. A dissolved company, a company that cannot be found, or someone claiming to be a director who is not listed as an officer are each reported with the record attached.
- Companies House
- MEADOWBROOK CARE LTD · 05512930 · active
- 03
Employment dates
Whether the candidate’s dates and the referee’s dates agree.
The candidate supplies dates at consent; the referee supplies them independently. Where they differ, the report shows both values side by side and states nothing further.
- dates
- Jun 2021 – Dec 2022 (candidate) · Sep 2021 – Dec 2022 (referee)
- 04
Email authenticity
Whether the reply genuinely originated from the address it appears to come from.
Sender checks run on the inbound reply, and we look at whether two referees’ replies share an origin. Reported in plain terms: passed, or an anomaly worth knowing about.
- sender checks
- Pass · j.hartley@meadowbrookcare.co.uk
- 05
Response
What happened if a referee did not reply.
Up to three reminders in the first week. If there is still no reply the report is issued with the non-response recorded and the chase history shown. If nobody replies to any of your referees, we still send the report and return your credit.
- chase history
- 29 Jul 2026 08:30 reminder sent · 30 Jul 2026 19:41 replied
What we will not do
- We do not tell you whether to hire someone. We report evidence; the decision is yours.
- We do not state that a reference is false. We state what we found and what we could not confirm.
- We do not rate or score candidates.
- We do not collect criminal-record, health, or identity-document data, and we do not run DBS or right-to-work checks.
Common questions
- How long does a reference check take?
- The report is issued within minutes of the last referee replying — usually about fifteen. The checks are automated, so referee response time is the only variable; the activity trail shows exactly when each was contacted and reminded.
- What does the employer have to provide?
- The candidate’s name, email address and the role. No CV, and no other personal data. If you already hold referee details you can enter them yourself, but by default the candidate names their own.
- Does the candidate have to agree?
- Yes. Explicit consent from the candidate is the lawful basis for the check, and no referee is contacted before it is given.
- What happens if a referee does not reply?
- We remind them up to three times in the first week. Then the report is issued either way, with the non-response recorded as an outcome. If nobody replies to any of your referees, we still send the report and return your credit.
All the questions we get asked →
Run one on your next candidate and see for yourself
Your first check is free. What it produces is a real report on a real candidate, and it is yours to keep.
PreHire reports verification evidence. Hiring decisions rest with the employer.