Credit check stopped Kimes first time.

When Kenneth Kimes tried to rent an Upper East Side apartment from Robert Hammer of the David Frankel Realty group, he had to fill out a credit application. That application, full of wrong numbers and misspellings, was sent to the firm Need to Know Reporting (N2K) of Merrick, Long Island, a family firm run by Peter Kasindorf, a former mortgage broker.

Kasindorf's initial check came up with no matches because the name used by Kimes, as well as the address and zip code, were slightly wrong. But Kimes, who apparently had gone into the bathroom to fill in the Social Security number, got that part right, and that match resulted in finding the proper spellings, address and zip code for an Ohio man.

Kimes, seeking an apartment across the street from his eventual conquest, the posh townhouse of landlord Irene Silverman on East 65th Street, had claimed to be employed by and to be head of a company in the Bahamas, but did not provide a bank account number or local contacts. That, along with the numerous improper information, led to Vice President Sandy Kasindorf's recommendation that Hammer pass up this applicant.

Hammer was out of town on vacation and could not be reached to comment on the events.

In their pre-screen report, N2K searched landlord-tenant court records and ran a credit report, and would have normally continued collecting information for their comprehensive report by speaking to employers, owners of past residences and banks.

"But before we went further, we told them about the offshore employment, which would not help if we needed to look for money," she recalled. "There was a lot of stuff that didn't jibe."

They continued the search for a local employer and the name matched to an employee at a mid-western hospital.

Hammer apparently passed on his client, actually Kimes, and within days, the Kasindorfs received a call from the real person's wife, wanting to know why they had run a credit report.

Meanwhile, the trusting widow across the street, Irene Silverman, allowed Kimes to rent an apartment from her under yet a different alias - this one belonged to a local man - but apparently didn't run any kind of credit report that would have turned up the bad record Kimes had already created on this individual's credit report.

Silverman was soon missing and through news reports, the Kasindorfs and Hammer realized the subject of their credit searches was the same individual. He and his mother are currently being held without bail on numerous charges, including fraud, and there are several other jurisdictions seeking information on missing people. The Kasindorfs and Hammer have cooperated with investigators.

"We find this kind of misinformation at least once or twice a week," said Peter Kasindorf, commenting on the hundreds of in-depth searches he conducts for many top local owners and brokers. "Often, they are not employed, they are not earning what they say they are earning, and they don't live where they say they are living. We find out where they really do work, and really do live."

Such in-depth reports have helped cut down on the number of court actions their clients have to take, Kasindorf claimed.

"A lot of city managers, boards and Realtors are relying on us to get the whole picture. It's very inexpensive - about $40 - and we do all that legwork and put it together on one report, and it makes the decision very quick," Kasindorf added.

With nearly instantaneous turn-arounds on searches for business reports, Kasindorf says he is often called in the middle of a negotiation or contract session by someone who wants to check out the other party's financials.

"We verify the financial statements, and even if the people give them to us, we review them for authenticity, "Kasindorf said. "People are making these beautiful 1040's on their computers. We are learning how to find the phony W2s and phony pay-stubs. I even have a book two inches thick with letters from employers that are completely false."

N2K also screens potential building employees, checking criminal backgrounds and driving records, "and sometimes the board of directors will call and say 'Will you screen a nanny?'"

He believes the new law permitting families to run fingerprint checks on their potential nannies will take what he says will be two weeks "too long," and at $75, cost too much, when he runs numerous background checks within days for much less.

He believes in checking out future building employees and tenants to avoid problems in the future. "If something happened, they can show they tried to ensure their safety," said Kasindorf. "Even if the reports came back with a clean record, the board or agent can say they tried to do their best to check them out."