Hard Card Fingerprinting for Cali License

[missyumee]

I requested for the fingerprinting card to be sent to me, but who knows when it will get here. If I go to the police office to get my fingerprinting done, will those fingerprinting cards work? Are they the same cards? Thank you!

[NedRN]

Yes, they are exactly the same cards! FD-258.

If at all possible, don't use them. Instead, take a trip to California and use Livescan printing. Some agencies are even paying for round trip airfare, Valley for one. I've heard horror stories of fingerprint cards not being readable and the delays can take over a year to resolve. It might take a couple months to find out your cards are unreadable and redo.

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

I agree with the above. If there's any way possible to travel to California, you can go to any of the many places that do LiveScan fingerprinting and get it done there. You'll know right away if the prints are good enough because the machine will tell the operator that. Once the prints are sent off, they'll be in the queue for processing. There's also a way to call an automated system to check on the status of your background check. That can't be done with a traditional hard card. Here's something else... if you have any other fingerprints to be done, just bring the hard card(s) with you and they'll print to them, probably for an additional rolling fee, but you'll then have those hard cards too.

[missyumee]

Thanks. It's going to be hard for me to try to make it there, but I might have to try. How was your experience w/ Valley agency?

[NedRN]

My original license was California. Valley is a good agency, good reviews, great owner. But I've never worked for them.