The following is opinion. Mine and Mine alone. You can see the facts and make your own judgment
Just when you thought the credit card companies and debt collectors only watched your payments. Think Again. It’s sneaky, it’s wrong (in my opinion) but it looks like its legal if employers participate. Its brilliant actually in a weird sort of way. Employees are monitored like frogs jumping from pad to pad without their knowledge. Every payday.
The interesting fact? Most employers and employees are outraged when they find out. Call a few and ask them yourself. The number of people this affects is mind boggling
Here is what I found:
• Your employer hires a company called the work number to answer calls to verify employment of former and current employees ( theworknumber) for mortgage companies, lenders and the like.
• Updated employees payroll files are given to the work number every pay period
• The work Number takes the employment data of the employees and secretly sells it in a monitoring service to debt collector ( See frog ad )
• If a employee changes employment (promotions quits, fired, start a new job with another employer or changes their mailing address with the employer for w2) the debt collector is notified
• It is recapped here again: http://www.equifax.com/consumer/risk/collection_recovery/en_us
• No one knows this goes on and most employers, labor unions and employees themselves are extremely upset when they find out that by using the work number, they have no right to what happens to their employee information. They don’t own it anymore. And skip tracers, debt collectors and credit card companies monitor them.
• 49 Million Americans are monitored daily according to theworknumber.
• 2000 employers participate http://theworknumber.com/ParticipatingEmployers/
• They are in the 2009 debt collectors buying guide (http://www.debt3online.com/?page=article&article_id=300 ) with the following quote
• “The Work Number, an Equifax Consumer Information Solution, provides numerous services to help you locate your debtors instantly. The first service is current place of employment for over 30% of the nation's employed population, making us the largest central source for instant employment data. This data is supplied directly from employers each pay period, so it is authentic, up-to-date and a one-stop shop for agencies trying to locate debtors.”
• Buying Guide PDF version here: http://www.debt3online.com/pdfs/200909.pdf
So it may be legal but when the unions and employeees find out about this, they are going to be upset in my honest opinion.
