Employment Verification Fees?

Question

My wife just tried to do an employment verification on a potential tenant - and the company said there was a $25 fee for me to verify their employment and income.

Has anyone else ever heard of this happening?

We'll just be getting the tenant to give us pay-stubs instead, cause I'm not paying that. I've just never had that happen.

Brandon Turner · Answer

Good to know everyone. Yeah, I think I'll skip paying the fee and just do your idea Ben Skove about calling directly like that. Combined with the pay stub, I think I'll feel okay.  It makes sense that big companies are tired of doing verifications, it just sucks to have an added layer to screen tenants.

Ben Skove · Answer

Brandon, I had an applicant whose employer mandated going through a third party and paying a fee. It appears that this is becoming more widespread - perhaps to lighten the load on their HR department?

To get around it, I both checked her pay stubs and called her supervisor at work (without forewarning the applicant, and getting the number directly from the employer's website), confirmed her position, and asked to be transferred to her phone. In other words, standard business call procedure.

Rob K. · Answer

Do they have direct deposit? If so, you could look at the pay stub AND bank statement to see if the numbers match.

Ray Orellano · Answer

I haven't ran into that fee either.

Side note- We always collect the pay-stubs straight from the tenant, and never had any issues. Between the credit score/background check and their pay-stub, I am able to make a pretty good judgement. I do check to see if they at least work at the company. There are many ways to do that without paying.

Jon Holdman · Answer

I've not bumped into that.  I'd push that fee back to the applicant.

Steve Babiak · Answer

This is now a more common thing, with employers having out-sourced the verification to third party vendors.  I have seen $18 to $20 before, but price increases wouldn't be a surprise.

How will you determine whether the amounts on the pay stubs received from applicants weren't altered by some creative computer use?  Credit reports are also subject to the same sort of alterations if received from an applicant, although most landlords will insist on getting those directly from the source.