IDENTITY THEFT

POTATO

I just received a phone call from a person in another state who filed his taxes for the first time this year. He received a letter from the IRS telling him that he had worked for OUR company and needed to report those wages as well. He believes he is the victim of identity theft. The name we reported is slightly different than his and of course he didn't work for us. I really limited my conversation with him, did not give him any information regarding this "other" person, I just listened and sympathized. I explained that I have NOT received any notification from either the IRS nor the SS Admin. regarding this situation and I would be unable to answer any questions and that for me, HE could be the imposter. I told him that if he wanted to fax me over the documenation he received, I would take a look at it but would probably NOT be able to do anything.

NOW WHAT??? Has anyone encountered this situation? What are my obligations? The employee still works here and has for a few years. At the time of his hire, his identification seemed legitimate...I just don't know what to do now that I know all of this (and what exactly do I know)? I feel a "morale" obligation to look into this but not being "officially" notified of any problem, what are my legal requirements? I am waiting to receiving a copy of the notifications he received. I am little curious about OUR information that was given him and by whom. He was given our company name and an address but no phone number. How nervous should I be???

LarryC

So far, Potato, all you have is a phone call. I would guess that the IRS made a clerical error. On the other hand, there may be something to his story. Or it might be a scam. Wait for the requested information from this other person.

As an after thought, how long has this employee been with you? Did you do a background check on him?

Keep us posted, Potato.

POTATO

This employee has been with us since 2003. No back-ground checks-we are a potato warehouse where turnover is high and workers are considered "seasonal". I have a core of employees that return season after season and he is one of them.

dwitt

As unbelievable as this sounds, I had a person come in TODAY to see me about a very similar situation!

This person received a letter from the IRS stating that he worked for my Company in 1995-1996 and that he did not report his wages for those years. He claims that he did not work here and wants me to provide him with a letter stating that he was never employed by my company. I told him that I could not write this letter because (1) I did not hold this HR position during 95' and 96' and never knew the "other" person using his ssn, so I cannot verify either way (2) the employee file was destroyed per our record retention policy, and (3) How do I know that he is who he claims to be - the real person holding the ssn? I told him that he should start to resolve this problem with the Social Security Administration or the IRS. I provided him with the local SSA office and wished him good luck.

My situation is different than yours - I don't have an employee with a valid/invalid ssn, currently working. My suggestion to you is to leave it alone and to not hold any more conversations with this person claiming "identity theft". How do you know if it isn't just some malicious act? How would you know if the document faxed to you is legitimate? I have many Hispanic employees. I have heard so many times from angry individuals "________is illegal", false paperwork, etc.

If you complied with the I9 regs and checked the documentation provided to you by your employee at the time of hire, then you have fulfilled your obligation as the employer. You should not act on some anonymous phone call and start checking out your employee's identity. You could be eventually faced with discrimination, especially if you let the employee go. I would not do anything if I were you unless I received something from the IRS or SSA, or government agency.

I would also tell this person to get some legal help in getting this situation resolved. He/she might even be able to go to an HR Block for assistance!

Good luck!

E Wart

You may want to look at [url]www.clarkhoward.com[/url] and hunt for identity theft. (He is the consumer radio DJ in Atlanta who is syndicated and is such a good guy.) One of his big things is identity theft. The first thing he encourages the "robbed" person to do is report it to the police and to the 3 credit companies. You might need to ask the person for the police report. However, I would tell them that they need to deal with the police IRS, SSA, etc. If they want to deal with the "person robbing" they should do this directly and you should not be involved. What have you done wrong? I would give them absolutly no information or help at this point until you receive more info and even then, I am not sure that this is your responsibility. (Also, you have been filing taxes for your employee (who is the robbing party). Are taxes and SS payments you have made on behalf of your employee shown up under this "robbed" parties taxes and SSN? He may be getting something out of this deal?
E Wart

CathyMac

Along these same lines, I have been told that many companies no longer (or never perhaps) keep copies of ee's identification documents. What are you all doing? I'm very nervous about having copies of thousands of people's drivers licenses, social security cards, birth certificates.

I know legally we just have to verify employment eligibility and complete the I-9, right? We're not required to keep copies of the actual identification documents....

VS

You are right, you do not have to keep copies of the I-9 identification provided. We keep copies. We have found it to be helpful when questions arise. We hire a large population of foreign nationals and we always have issues. We did a SS# check/sweep three years ago (SSA contacted us about several, so we did the entire company). We ended up terming around 200 employees nationwide. As I understand it, once you have asked for the ID and have approved the I-9 form, later you cannot go back and ask to see the documentation again. Can anyone verify this?

HRCalico

[url]http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/lawsregs/handbook/hand_emp.pdf[/url] - Handbook for Employers

(p.2) For the purpose of satisfying the employment eligibility verification requirements, an employer cannot request that an employee present more or different documents than are required. Also an employer cannot refuse to honor documents which on their face reasonably appear to be genuine and to relate to the person presenting them.

(p.9) If an investigation reveals that an employer has knowingly hired or knowingly continued to employ an unauthorized alien, or has failed to comply with the employment eligibility verification requirements . . . the INS may take action.

Neither of these specifically address your question, VS, but I'd say the p.9 part tells me that if I suspect a problem, I need to check it out, and that could include re-verifying the ID used at time of hire. Since I keep a copy, I would probably look at that first, but if I didn't take one, I might ask to see it again.

That said, I think you are handling this correctly, Potato. I can see why you're nervous, but I think you're doing the right thing. (Just be consistent in the future!)

POTATO

Thanks for all your sound advice. I too felt that even though the documents "appeared" authentic at the time of hire, it was my responsibility to acknowledge this possible fraud and make the EE clear it up. Since I do not keep copies of ID, I asked the EE to "SHOW" me his SSC to make sure that I hadn't reported a wrong number but he "can't find" his card and doesn't remember his number, so I gave him a LOA w/o pay. If he does not return next week with proof of ownership, I am assuming fraud and he will be officially terminated. He didn't seem surprised about having a problem with the SSN - just that it took so long. He said he'd been here almost 3 years without any problems - why now? I didn't tell him why, just go clear it up BUT the reason is because the documents he used was a CHILDS that is now old enough to work!!! (I think knowing that made me even madder). oh well....dirty deeds done dirt cheap!!!

pork1

P0TATO: DO NOT TERMINATE DUE TO FRAUD, BUT TERMINATE DUE TO ABSENTEE CONDITIONS.

PORK

POTATO

I'm not sure why I can't terminate because of fraud. The number does not belong to him and my application that he signed and my policy manual that he signed all clearly state that if an individual knowingly provides false information to gain employment, that employee will be terminated. Is it because of "how" I initially received the information that the card was not his?

dchr9203

It's possible that a social security number got transposed. I've had that happen to a couple of employees. I contacted the SS# administration, explained to them the situation and the offered guidance. But based on a phone call from an unknown, I would do anything. If they fax over the information, then you can go from there.

hrdir03nafcu

Potato:

While I agree with everyone else who's posted so far that you have no responsibility to the person who contacted you...and none to advise your current EE about the situation, you do have a responsibility to your employer.

If I found myself in this situation, I think I would at least verify the current EE on the SSA/BSO website if I hadn't already done so (I just recently signed up for this service, so EE's hired before my account was activated have not been verified). It could be something as innocent as a clerical error at IRS or SSA. But if someone is working for us under fraudulent name/SSN, I'd want to know about it.

If your EE's SSN doesn't check out, or if the caller does FAX you the docs, or both, I would suggest contacting someone in SSA and referring the matter to them: it's their responsibility to investigate/resolve the matter, not yours. In other circumstances, I'd leave it to the EE to resolve the matter w/ the SSA, which is the correct procedure. But, since you've been contacted w/ a claim (of so far unknown validity) of ID theft, you have some additional reason to at least report the whole picture to the SSA so that they can investigate it, if that's appropriate.

POTATO

Update...this reponse is LONG!! I received a fax today from the person claiming to be the victim. These faxed documents, which include an IRS Notice and a computer printout of W2 data reported for my employee including my employees full name and address, our company name and EIN, appear to be valid. The SSA did also verify that my employees SSN does belong to the same NAME of person who faxed me this information and NOT my employees name (the first names are different but both start with the same letter). I have NO way of knowing for sure that the person who faxed me this information is the legitimate owner of this SSN either BUT I am fairly certain my employee is NOT the legal owner. Again we still have received NO official information from IRS/SSA.

I have spoken with the owner of our company and will be taking the next course of action with my employee unless someone great and wise from this forum thinks it would be a mistake:

we are requesting that our employee produce the SS Card used to gain employment, for our review. Should that card still bare the false information, we will inform our employee that in accordance with our strict policy of providing fraudulant information to gain employment, we are placing this employee on "probation" BECAUSE it has come to our attention that the SSN he showed us for verification of employment may contain fraudulant information and the possible error MUST be corrected by the SSA before he can return to work. This "probation" means that he may NOT return to work unless he can provide proof of ownership of the SSN he provided us. His position will be available to him should he be able to clarify this situation within 1 week, however if he is unable to provide proof of ownership or proof of the course of action he has taken to clear this matter with the SSA, we will terminate his employment.

We decided to allow this employee a "chance" to clear this up JUST IN CASE there is some kind of weird cosmic mistake. We chose NOT to tell him exactly what is wrong with the card - we want HIM to find out what is wrong with his card and report back to us.

AND in a twist of unbelievable irony, when I logged in my SSN to verify my employees SSN - MY SSN did not match my name!!! Apparently when I changed my name when I married (15 years ago), the person who changed my last name decided they didn't like how my first name was spelled - so I had to go down and fix my card!! How weird is this!!! I have received very high level government security clearances and NO ONE caught the error!!

So my scenerio confirms WHY we really want to give this employee a chance to prove an error was made BUT we don't want to continue to allow him to perpetrate a fraud should that be the case either.

Does our action seem appropriate, legal and fair? I really don't enjoy this job some days.......

hrdir03nafcu

Potato:

Your actions so far, and plans for going fwd, sound perfectly appropriate to me.

It's between your current EE and the SSA now to resolve this-- let them resolve it.

E Wart

Obviously we don't know everything that is going on but I've been told that as long as the information the employee provides us is "reasonable", we are not supposed to question it. Are you now "going too far" in questioning the validity of the individuals employment if you have already verified when the employee was hired that they already provided the information you need? This is a difficult area and can be hard to handle.
E Wart

joycel

Some days just get too exciting, don't they? If you haven't already consulted with your labor lawyer about all of this I'd do so right away. If nothing else you will receive confirmation that you are taking all the right steps. However, it's also possible your lawyer will offer other prudent advice. Better to get that from the get-go than learn too late that you should have taken a slightly different course of action. Good luck!

pork1

POTATO: Like pork we are in the food industries. Does your person happen to be a Foreign National? Understand this, you could potentially be employing a foreign national, whose identity has been stolen from the other person with whom you had a telephone conversation.

If your employee is a U.S. Citizen then you might choose to verify the data and then to let the individual know of the conversation you had and let your employee have time to go to the SSA and right the wrong if there is one. SSA will help him or her get the IRS also involved to write this wrong.

Be careful it might just be a scam!

PORK