(was posted a while ago, but no replies) If a background image is turned off by a user, its last value is still shown in the api for the verifyCredentials and user/show actions.
For example, I get this: ... <profile_background_image_url> http://static.twitter.com/images/themes/theme1/bg.gif </profile_background_image_url> ... although I would expect to see something like this: ... <profile_background_image_url/> or another field that says <profile_background_image_show>false</ profile_background_image_show>