Totally Made Up Pay Stubs - Be Careful Out There!

[Patti Robertson]

This past weekend we had two different applications for two different properties that had one thing in common. Both applicants submitted totally fake W-2s. You can’t just rely on automated screenings.  You really need to look at the data submitted to see if it makes sense. Here are some of the clues that a paystub may be a fake.

1) The YTD earnings don’t make sense.  One of our stubs spanned from Dec-Jan, so this would have been the first paycheck of the year, yet the YTD totals were different than the current check.

2) Paystubs from different employers that look identical.  We had one applicant submit paystubs from two different restaurants - one local and one a chain - that were formatted identically, and both were missing the city, state, zip for the employee, but included the street address.

3) Hours reported that should have an overtime calculation, but don’t.  We had one submit 100 hours in a pay period, but all were paid at the straight hourly pay. Our state requires anything over 40 ours be paid at overtime rate.  Even if the paystub is correct, can an employer who doesn’t follow the law be deemed to be a dependable income source?  Not on my watch.

4) Employer street address does not exist.  One of the paystubs we had this week included an employer’s address that does not exist in our city. I asked her physically where she went to work and she quoted me that address. I asked what the building looked like and she describe it. Since she claimed to work 50 hours/week I asked her to step outside and snap a picture of the front of the building to send it to me.  She claimed that was her one day she took off to run errands. I asked her to send it to me in the morning when she went to work next, and of course, all communication with us ceased.

5) Employer is not registered to do business in your state.  If you have never heard of the employer, doing a search on your state business registration site is a really simple thing to do. In Virginia, our State Corporation Commission website has an entity search feature that allows you to search any entity to see if their registration is current, expired, or non-existant. In our case, this so called employer had never registered to do business in our state, which means that the tax withholding info on the paystubs was also a lie.

6) Never contact an employer at the number an applicant gives you.  Confirm the employer’s phone number on-line.  Google the phone number provided.  If it is a legitimate work place, the number will be traceable. It it is a cell, you should be able to at least see that as well. Legitimate companies almost always have land lines.  If they are too small to have a real phone line, can you consider them to be a reliable, dependable source of income? 

There are now websites where people can pay for fake W-2s, pay stubs, and employer verifications.  Don’t ever believe what an applicant tells or gives you.  Verify, verify, verify.

[Michael Noto]

Excellent post @Patti Robertson