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Employer used Work Number to out employee with 3 current jobs, fires her (dailydot.com)
23 points by FeaturelessBug 1146 days ago
6 comments

Would it have killed them to do any research at all on this article instead of just rephrasing a tiktok?

>“I never signed up for this website to put this kind of information out for anybody to obtain who gets the code to obtain it.” It is unclear what code Flint is referring to.

Seriously, it would take two minutes to log onto the site and see what verification process they have in place. The dogged insistence on adding absolutely no value is frustrating

> Would it have killed them to do any research at all on this article instead of just rephrasing a tiktok?

This is the latest in low-effort content milling. Whenever I open a new Chrome tab on my phone, I see an endless stream of these paraphrased Reddit and TikTok posts. Right now I see Cheezburger, YourTango, The Daily Dot, Pleated Jeans, Upworthy, and Newsweek. Most point to outrage porn like r/AITA and r/pettyrevenge.

It's really quite funny to read some 22-year-old intern's attempt to take a Reddit post about someone feeling slighted at a family dinner and dress it up as serious breaking news. I guess this is how one pays one's dues as a young journalist these days.

The sooner they get replaced by GPT, the better.
The fact that the writer seems incapable of interacting with the world outside of this one TikTok made me feel like that's already happened
The fruit that hangs the lowest.
It seems unusual that the company would rely solely on theworknumber to verify employment. My equifax report shows me having two employers, one from 13 years ago and one from 16 years ago and doesn’t show my current employer.

So it seems unlikely that this is the only method the anonymous person whose story this is based on actually used that data.

Also, if someone has three jobs and violates one of the jobs employment agreement, then it makes sense that they are fired. That’s unethical. My employer doesn’t allow second jobs without ethics reviews and I’d be fired (or at least really chewed out) if I had a second job.

When refinancing my mortgage last year, my lender pulled a report from theworknumber.

I had to submit paystubs and a 2021 W2 from my employer because it was hopelessly wrong, claiming my income was >60% lower than actual.

I locked it right then.

This is really good to know- I shared this mainly as a warning to people who might be caught up in the same mess.
My guess is they probably didn't rely solely on this report, but confronted her with the report and she probably confessed and gave some excuse for it instead of saying "the report is wrong, call those other companies if you don't believe me".

Or maybe they actually did call those other companies and got verification from them.

There are so many ads on this page, it crashes before I can read a sentence
You're not able to run an ad-blocker on that computer?
Companies also use this to throw out lowball salary offers to candidates, on the assumption that it's showing accurate number for their current job.
Does GDPR prevent this in Europe ?
No but the right to be forgotten. These companies are not allowed to collect this information on Europeans unless you are doing business with them.

If you are in Switzerland you can use the following letter samples [1] to request a copy of your data and also delete any data they may have of you.

These letters have consequences if the companies don't comply.

[1] https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/de/home/datenschutz/dokumen...

I think it would prevent an employer from transferring personal data to a third party without justification.
US-based companies don't view employee information this way. The (unfortunate) US approach is: "once available, it's no longer your property, and can be bought and resold to anyone."
what a joke website