Companies often need to verify employment, salary, and/or educational degrees – either for employee screening, tenant screening, or some other permissible business purpose. All too often, many companies rely on documents that are submitted by the individual consumer applicant. Examples of documents provided by these individuals are pay stubs, college diplomas and transcripts. The problem is that frequently these documents are fakes.
Fraudulent pay stubs, college diplomas and transcripts are very easy to obtain today. In addition to the widespread availability of laser printers and desktop publishing, there are a plethora of websites that will sell counterfeit documents, enabling dishonest consumers to falsify their credentials to deceive companies into approving their application for employment, tenancy, or other business reason.
Without independent verification of employment, salary and educational history, companies are at risk of being duped by documents that are provided by the person applying for the position. Companies should independently verify information themselves, or they should hire a third-party, reliable background screening company to perform this function.
Real or Fake? It is usually impossible for most people to know when examining a pay stub, diploma or transcript. At Reliable Background Screening, we have a long history of uncovering falsified credentials through our verification services. Some examples include college diplomas that even the registrar offices at various universities had difficulty, in determining that the four-color “diplomas” that were emailed to us by the consumer applicants, and that we then forwarded to the university’s registrar offices, were not authentic.
The takeaway here for companies is that they should not rely on documents submitted by individuals. Instead, companies should independently verify the credentials of applicants – whether it be for employee screening, tenant screening, or another business purpose. Otherwise, companies will be at risk for being deceived, and making their approval decision on falsified information. If companies do not have the resources or desire to verify credentials directly, they should outsource this function to a reliable background screening company.
Posted by: Rudy Troisi. President, Reliable Background Screening.
