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Founding consortium Florida

The fraud cases companies can prove, held in common.

Members search only for a purpose they certify, and anyone named can read their file and answer it.

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Employment: applicant Applicant #4471

CF-2026-000119DocumentedDisputedPublished Apr 28, 2026

Cash skimming

Lorna Castellanos, Leasing agent, employee

Conduct period
Jun 2024 to Jan 2025
Loss
$10,000 to $100,000
Evidence on file
Investigation report, Bank or ledger record
Corroborating entries
None

Filed by Harbor & Pine Residential LLC. Its record: 2 entries published, 0 modified or deleted on dispute, 0 upheld.

The entry, as the member filed it

At two communities in lease-up, the leasing agent accepted security deposits and first-month payments by money order from 23 new residents and recorded smaller amounts in the property ledger. The difference was $18,940. The agent resigned on February 7, 2025; the investigation report is dated March 14, 2025.

Statement of the person named

I took those payments and put every one of them in the office safe the same day, as the procedure said. Two other people had the combination. Nobody asked me about any of this before I left, and I left for a job closer to home, not because of an investigation I didn't know existed.

Filed Oct 6, 2026

Disputed under DSP-2026-00007. The reporting member's response is due Oct 16, 2026 (in 4 days). Commonfile finishes reinvestigating by Nov 5, 2026.

Built around

  • FCRA §605 retention
  • FCRA §611 disputes
  • FCRA §615 adverse action
  • ACFE conduct taxonomy
  • Hash-chained audit log

The quiet departure

The case a company documented,
then kept to itself.

Suppose a property manager in Tampa finds that its bookkeeper spent two years paying invoices to a vendor that doesn't exist. There is an investigation, a termination letter, perhaps a repayment agreement. There is no prosecution.

So the bookkeeper resigns. A criminal background check reads court records, and there is nothing in them to read. The next employer runs one, and it comes back clean. It is even, in a narrow sense, accurate.

Commonfile is built for that gap.

What occupational fraud costs
5%
of revenue, the share organizations lose to fraud, by estimate
$104,000
median loss per case
20%
of cases lose more than $1 million

Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Occupational Fraud 2026: A Report to the Nations.

How it works

Filed with documents,
found only for a reason.

Every entry carries two signatures and every search a certified purpose, and the person named can read the entry and answer it.

Contribute and attest

An investigator drafts the entry and attaches the documents. An officer who didn't draft it signs for the company.

Signatures on CF-2026-000119

Drafted byRenata Caldwell, Compliance Investigator

Attested byTheo Brandvold, General CounselAttestation AT-2026.1, Apr 8, 2026

Two different people. Reviewed Apr 13, 2026

Certify a purpose, then search

The searcher names a purpose and an internal reference before typing a name. Commonfile records why, and keeps no copy of the name.

Purpose
Employment: applicant
Internal reference
Applicant #4471

Certified: I certify that this search is for the purpose selected above and relates to the internal reference I entered. I will use any result only for that purpose, and if the purpose is employment, I will complete the adverse-action steps before acting on a result.

Certified under SC-2026.1

The person named can answer

They can read their file free and dispute any entry. Their statement sits beside the entry wherever a member finds it.

Dispute DSP-2026-00007

  1. Received. Statement attached to the entry.
  2. Reporting member's reply due, 10 days on
  3. Reinvestigation due, 30 days from receipt
2identifiers
The minimum for any search about a person. A name alone finds no one.
10business days
Notice to the person named before anyone can find the entry.
30days
For Commonfile to finish reinvestigating a dispute, as §611 requires.
7years
Counted from the end of the conduct, in both tiers. Then the entry expires.

The entry lifecycle

An entry passes through four hands
before anyone can find it.

No entry reaches a search until it has passed every stage, in this order.

From draft to a searchable entry

  1. Draft by the investigatorThe entry and its documents. The documents set the tier.

  2. Attest by an officerA signature for the company, from someone who didn't draft it.

  3. Review by Commonfile staffThe summary checked against the evidence. It can be sent back.

  4. Notice to the person namedWhat the entry says, then 10 business days before anyone can find it.

  5. Published to membersFindable by certified search until seven years after the conduct ended.

How the documents set the tier

New entry

Drafted for Harbor & Pine Residential

Person named
Corwin Ashby
Identifiers
Full name, date of birth
Conduct
Billing scheme
Conduct period
Mar 2024 to Jan 2025

Next: an officer attests.

Evidence on file

Choose the documents. The tier follows.

Tier, derived from the evidence

Documented

Findable by members in the consortium's own industry.

Evidence tiers

Two tiers of evidence,
and no third.

A member can't choose the tier, however sure it feels. The tier follows from what is on file.

AdjudicatedAdjudicated

What has to be on file
A court judgment, a criminal conviction or a regulatory action, with its docket number.
Which members can find it
All members, in every consortium.

DocumentedDocumented

What has to be on file
An investigation report, plus a termination record, restitution agreement, bank or ledger record, or civil settlement.
Which members can find it
Members in the consortium's own industry.

Allegation(not accepted)

What has to be on file
A suspicion, a complaint, an account with no records behind it.
Which members can find it
None. It is not an entry.

An allegation that can be searched has, in effect, already been published. The marks are shapes rather than colors for a related reason: a red mark reads as a verdict, and the tier describes the paperwork, not the person.

What members never see

No browsing, no profiles,
and no feed of names.

The most dangerous thing a product like this could build is a feed. Commonfile has nothing that works like one.

Not built: Browsing
Built instead: Search, one person or company at a time, with a certified purpose and at least two identifiers.
Not built: A profile of anyone
Built instead: Entries, which a member sees only when its own search matches them.
Not built: A feed of new names
Built instead: Match alerts, for people already in the member's own pipeline. Monitoring lapses after twelve months unless recertified.
Not built: The documents
Built instead: The kinds of evidence on file. The documents stay with Commonfile's reviewers.
Not built: Who ran a scheme
Built instead: Pattern bulletins, which describe how a scheme worked and never who ran it.

Questions

Fair questions,
answered plainly.

Starting with the one most people ask first.

No. A list of that kind is kept out of sight, takes anyone's word and gives the people on it no way to answer. Commonfile is built to do the opposite on each count. An entry needs documents, two signatures at the reporting company and a review by Commonfile staff. The person named is told before it publishes, can read it free and can dispute it. Members search only for a purpose they certify, and nobody browses.

What Commonfile is, plainly, is a shared record of documented fraud that members consult before they hire or contract. That is exactly why it carries these constraints.

Join the founding consortium,
or read your own file.

Property managers in Florida can apply now. Anyone named in an entry can request their file free, without an account.

Apply for founding membershipAre you named in Commonfile?