Background Checks Required on ALL new hire employees?
Wildsporty
283 Posts
I am being told the following and I am just wondering if anyone else has run into this situation. Are the creit card companies really requiring you to screen every employee if you accept credit and debit cards at your business or you pay still fines?
Note from my IS Director:
In our effort to become compliant with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) rules as a level 2 merchant, it will require AIM to change some of our company policies. Most of the changes will revolved around data and computer system security. Some will reach into other areas as well - for example, we must perform background checks on every employee hired in order for us to comply with these PCI rules. If we do not comply, we may be fined heavily, and our ability to accept credit and debit cards as payment for product may be denied.
Can someone here explain to me what he is talking about has anyone else ran inot this?
Thanks
Shirley
Note from my IS Director:
In our effort to become compliant with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) rules as a level 2 merchant, it will require AIM to change some of our company policies. Most of the changes will revolved around data and computer system security. Some will reach into other areas as well - for example, we must perform background checks on every employee hired in order for us to comply with these PCI rules. If we do not comply, we may be fined heavily, and our ability to accept credit and debit cards as payment for product may be denied.
Can someone here explain to me what he is talking about has anyone else ran inot this?
Thanks
Shirley
Comments
Best wishes,
I did find a company called Verification, Inc. that will do the background checks for me at a fairly reasonable fee and they will also do international ones.
Some of it is because we have an international basis with offices in several other countries and much of our business is done on the internet. It has something to do with data going from place to place.
Shirley
I honestly don't know what your legal requirements are, but it seems that with identity theft running rampant, this may be the wave of the future.
I know that I have to have a signed agreement from the prospective employee okaying the background check.
If I do not hire that person because of the credit report to comply with the government regulations on fair credit I have to tell that person why he/she is not being hired, give them a copy of the credit report, and the name address and phone number of the person providing the credit report. I must also give them a summary of their rights under the the FCRA. I must than give them a reasonable time usually 5 days to challenge the contents of the report. I also know I cannot deny employment on the basis of one bankruptcy. These are all in the 86 page FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act). I have been studying this FCRA report for days, I think I can almost recite it by now.
If the person is not hired because of other reasons that it does not apply.
We have a call center with 20 people handling calls from over 20,000 customers a day, we cannot have a dishonest person getting access to these credit card numbers.
Shirley
From the looks of the memo from your legal department, it says "background checks"...this sounds like they want not only a credit check, but also a criminal background as well. As previously mentioned, identity theft is a big concern in that your employees will be handling credit card information from your customers. As far as making a hiring decision based on a credit check alone, you would need some clarification from the credit card companies as to what they consider an unacceptable credit history, or is that completely up to your company to decide. It sounds like they want both a credit history and criminal background check performed as well.
I only hire 2 to 3 people a year, I think my budget can probably handle that.
These people do the background checks for a large computer software company in our area so I trust them to do ours.
Shirley