Pre employment social security check

Ruskanen · April 2002

We recently ordered a program called "Secure Hire" through ADP to check the validity of social security numbers of our applicants. Does anyone else do this? Do you have applicants sign a waiver specifically permitting you to do that? Our application already states, "I understand and agree that an investigation may be made whereby information is obtained through credit references, law enforcement agencies..." Does that cover us?

Whatever · April 2002

All our new employees are advised that they hired provided their s.s. # checks out.
Social Security will check numbers for free if the individual has been hired. The number is 800 772-6270. You will need to supply social security with
your company's EIN, the name and date of birth of the employee and the social
security number in question. Social Security will then advise you if there is a match.

Ruskanen · April 2002

We could do that but we wanted to save ourselves the time of hiring illegal aliens. I work for a manufacturing plant and most of our applicants are non-citzens. We were told by ADP that we could use this system to screen our applicants before we even call them in for an interview. I asked about the legality of this and they said it was completely fine. Does anyone else use a system like this?

Zoo Keeper · April 2002

We use a similar service, but only when an applicant reaches the conditional job offer stage.

WD · April 2002

We have a company policy that requires us to verify social security numbers on all employees. When we were implementing this policy, we contacted the social security office, and they mentioned that social security numbers could only be verified on current or past employees. Social security numbers could not be verified on applicants or "potential" new hires because of the invasion of privacy issue. To keep ourselves out of hot water here, we don't verify the SS # until after the applicant shows for orientation, which is the official hire date. As for permission to do so, we have all applicants sign a form that gives us permission to conduct a thorough background check.

We also do not allow an employee to change their name until they present us with an updated social security card. Hope this helps!

Magestry · April 2002

Employers are not required to be document experts. In reviewing the genuineness of the documents presented by employees, employers are held to a reasonableness standard. An employer who receives a document that appears not to be genunie may request assistance from the nearest INS field office or contact the Office of Business Liaison.

You may also want to read up on some of the INS guidelines for employment eligibility. Here are some links that might help you.

[url]www.ins.gov/graphics/howdoi/ead.html[/url]
[url]www.hrhero.com/headlines/122801/aliens.shtml[/url]
[url]www.workforce.com/section/01/0010956.html[/url]
[url]www.i9check.com/I9howto.html[/url]

I would suggest you read up on this a little because the Immigration Act was ammended in 1990 to prevent document abuse discrimination. This prohibits the employer from 1: requiring employees to present any specific documentation; 2: requiring employees to present more documents than are minimally necessary to establish identity and employment eligibility and 3: refusing to accept a document that reasonalbly appears to be genunine on its face.

Good Luck.

AZOTHR · April 2002

I've been in the HR field for 6 years now, I've been through 3 INS audits and and INS class on proving eligibility for employment and was told that employers are NOT to verify or ask to see proof of eligibility unless we've have officially hired that individual. It's a descrimination issue, for example you may have a hispanic candidate apply, therefore you will check his documentation simply due to the fact that the majority of your applicants are of hispanic background and are living in the usa ilegally, but in the other hand you do not check a caucasian applicants documentation because he looks American or because your gut feeling tells you he's legal. It could get you in trouble under the grounds of discrimination. I recommend when questions like this arise-if you have to double guess youself if a practice you are doing is right or wrong-legal or ilegal I would say to research your laws before you make it official or a practice. Just remember if you were to get audited by EEOC or INS are all your records going to show that you've screen or checked social security #'s on All your applicants year to date since you had the software? If the answer is no then I sugest you discontinue using the software.

Dottie · May 2002

Our company adopted the policy about a year ago of verifying all socials once the job offer had been made. We do this via the Social Security 1-800 number (or the website for larger numbers of employees). The job offer is contingent upon the social being verified. The reason we began this practice is that we would get about one quarter of the year into some new hires' employment and then receive communication from the Social Security office that we had employees with invalid social numbers. We then would have to terminate the employees due to illegal status and start the hiring/training process all over. All of this not to mention the paperwork headache caused at our central office due to the invalid socials. We do not now, nor have we ever, required the Social Security card be presented for I-9 verification. We accept any of the documents listed for that purpose. The only thing we ask for the verification of the social is the name, social number and date of birth (hence the verification must be done post job-offer). The verification is done before the new hire goes through orientation so that we do not spin everyone's wheels processing a new hire just to find out his/her social is not valid. If the SS office indicates it is not a match, we then give the new hire the opportunity to discover why, in case it is just an error. We cannot do take care of that because the SS office will only release to the employee the reason for the mismatch. If the new hire can get the problem corrected, the job offer stands.

KarenTN · May 2002

Are you paying accrued vacation and offering COBRA at termination? Our illegals were employed for over a year before SS notified us of the invalid numbers.

Ruskanen · May 2002

We have offered anything that they were due (i.e. unused vacation time and insurance benefits), and anything that we would have offered to any other employee as a benefit. These are employees that we didn't want to lose and we have nothing against them. Now, if someone tries to file for unemployment, we would probably contest that.

nancyp · May 2002

I do not check to see if the potential employee is legal or not. I take the documents at face value if all looks ok. Should I be doing something different?? Please advise.

Dottie · May 2002

Nancy -- the way I understand it, what you are doing is okay for the I-9. What we started running into was that after someone had been employed with us for several months, or even as much as a year, we would get a notice from the Social Security office that the number being used by that person did not belong to them or was invalid. For instance, one illegal was using the social number belonging to a four-year-old child. At that point, it becomes necessary to terminate the employee if he/she is unable to come up with a valid reason for the discrepancy. We started the social verification process post job offer to save our payroll department the headaches of processing paperwork unnecessarily. I believe there are some special paperwork headaches imposed by the SS office in these cases, too.

Ruskanen · May 2002

We took cards at face value at first too, and that's what got us into trouble. Things that look valid might not be. You can call the INS and they will tell you how to spot fake IDs. If you ask, they will even get you a booklet and show you some fake and real ID cards that they have. Once you get good at it, it's easy to see what is real and what is not. There are specific details that the fake IDs just can't replicate. The fake social security cards are harder to distinguish. What I did was order a brand new card for myself and then it was easy to compare their new cards to my new card. Things to look for...the columns on the card will have a raised feel, the typing of the name is centered over the seal. The typing should look like it was typed through carbon, not with an electric typewriter. If the ink is smeared, that's a good indication that's it's fake. The ink on the real card does not smear or bleed.

nancyp · May 2002

Thanks so much for the information I received. I will not be taking the ID at face value any longer.

Rockie · May 2002

We use an outside background check company and we only check background after an employee has been sent a letter of hire, etc. It is stated in the letter of hire that employment is contingent upon completion of a successful background check. Employees are also required to sign an authorization to check their background. The company also requires a signed application along with the signed authorization before they will conduct a background check.

We use ADP for our payroll and they approached us about this system, but I was not comfortable with it due to the lack of procedures in authorizing the background checks. Also, there was a lot of input that had to be done from an HR perspective. All we have to do is fax the authorization and a copy of the signed application to our company and they send us a report.

Pre employment social security check

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