Quote:
Originally Posted by deposite
Why would you freeze them? Do you have something to hide?
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The issue the OP is discussing comes about through the manipulation of loopholes in regulations. What has happened is employers turn over their personnel records to a verification company that is used to provide employment verification. Those companies have found legal ways to shuffle the records within their own conglomerate of companies to where information in a person's employment records can be sold to various other entities.
At first, it was more along the lines of names of people, who work in a specific industry, in a designated geographical area, who earn over a certain annual salary. Now, I can buy a list that have been culled from employer personnel records of people in a specific city who are having child support payment deducted or garnished from their paycheck.
At first, it was mostly premium credit card offers, luxury merchants and specialized marketing through highly recognized and vetted companies. Now, just about any business can come up with a reason to make these request, often by highly questionable entities with dubious backgrounds.
Recently, it was reported that a high percentage of fraud conducted under the PPA, for unemployment benefits or to engage in IRS refund scams, originated through information obtained on employees through this method. Even cases of corporate email scams were developed using information from outsourced personnel verifications.
In response to the accumulating bad publicity over their lax operations, a couple of those companies have created Opt Out systems which essentially allows an employee to freeze their personnel record, similar to a credit report. The problem is because some of these companies wont openly admit they are shuffling peoples employment verification files to other areas within the company, they freeze the entire file from everyone.
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