Employers charging fee to verify tenant employment?

Question

I went to verify an applicant's employment today and the employer had outsourced this function to a company called "Work Number". Work Number charges a $17 processing fee to verify the employment and income.

Has anyone else run across this?

Ralph S. · Answer

Outsourcing employment verification has been around for years.  Mostly larger companies.

None of my tenants would fall into that category...LOL.   I do, though.  Have a couple past employers who do this, and it's a pain for the (former) employee, too.  Log on, securely identify myself, answer security questions, agree to release information, review the information that will be released, get a temp id and pw, good for only a short period, and have to give that to the bank or whoever needs to verify.

Think about it, employees rent, get loans for cars and homes, apply for jobs and any other life event where someone has to verify employment dates, salaries, etc.  Loading all this into an online database sure beats paying someone to respond to the endless faxes requesting information.

Imagine it'll become more and more common.

Steve Babiak · Answer

Can't say that I have.  Can you try to get to the employee's supervisor?  Once you have them on the phone, it's not likely they will force you into that outsourced function.