REFERENCE WANTED PAY FOR IT

neveradull

Today I tried to do a reference check on a potential new employee who works for a major department store chain. When I called the store I was told to go on-line to [url]www.theworknumber.com[/url]. On-line for a fee they would tell me if the person was employed and for another fee would give me a hourly wage. Have any of you been told by an employer that references are provided for a fee?

System

Yes many times. I work for a trucking company which hauls hazardous materials and it is common place to be told that we must pay for the reference. In our business it is simply the cost of doing business. So my advise is if this is an employee that you are really interested in and you feel that you need past salary information pay for it. Our need is always for safety not really salary.

Whirlwind

I, too, have faced this situation with CDL driver positions.

neveradull

Thanks for the info, I guess I have really led a sheltered life as this was a first for me. Golly
maybe I could make some money on the side by charging for what I have given for free. (NOT)

ray a

First time I have heard of it, too.

Open1

We have a service that does background checks on all our new hires and we have to approve an extra $10-$15 fee for this at least once or twice a week. It seems the very large employers tend to have this arrangement, but some smaller ones do too.

The worst was the company that required both a fee AND a code number from the employee, and they made it nearly impossible for their former employee to get the code number... aarrrrgggh!

System

Haven't run across the "pay for a referrence" scenario, but on a related subject, we are constantly recieving subpoenas for personnel files from attorneys who are representing past employees in some lawsuit against another party. They want us to provide copies of every document in the file. I'm sure you have all experienced this. I have been notifying the various attorneys that our minimum fee for "file retrieval and reproduction" is $50, and if the file is in storage off site, the fee is a minimum of $75. All fees are payable up front before we will provide the file. Its really amusing to hear some of these attorneys bitch and moan about the "high fee" - as they sit and charge $250 an hour (or more)for their services. The courts have determined that it is completely appropriate to charge "reasonable fees" for such services. Only one attorney in the last 5 years has had me itmeize the serice charges to presumably challenge the "reasonableness". I provided him an itemized invoice for services and never heard from him again. All others have paid the charge and I apply the money to an account to bring in lunch for the employees.

dbutton111

We use the worknumber for all references and employment verification except for gov't (such as info request for child support, etc). Some employers, such as us, pay extra to allow employees to get a "key" that allows those doing the check to log in for free. (limited number of times)