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Comment by basseq | Hacker News Reader

I've used this before as an employee. While it may also be a bulk dataset of employment information (which any HRS or payroll provider would have), the ostensible use of this solution is, to quote their homepage, "credentialed verifiers with permissible purpose access to income and employment data".

Key words there are credentialed and permissible purpose.

In other words, it's an automated way for me as an employee to have my employer verify my employment and/or salary information—not necessarily both—without having to hunt down someone in HR. This is particularly useful for previous companies where I no longer have access to internal systems.

I have used it most commonly for mortgage applications.

I can log in and generate a one-time or limited-use code to provide access, and select which data I want to provide access to. I then provide that key to the third party, who verifies with Equifax.

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I think the issue is - do companies who give them information also get access to it for people outside their org

Others have wrote this in the thread, but anecdotally I once tried to push up what I considered a low ball offer, and lied about my current comp. HR quickly said - no, thats not your current comp

I'm pretty sure they didn't reach out to my current company to ask, so the only other option was abusing a system like this

I very much doubt it. The "Salary data is for sale" title is misleading; There's no way for me to go pay Equifax for access to u/shmatt's data. They might have some aggregate datasets for sale, removing PII.

The same goes for credit data; you (largely) can't run a credit check on me without my permission.

This is an HR service to ease the burden of legitimate requests for employment or salary data that you, as an employee, request.

More logically, employers wouldn't want other companies to be able to access their payroll information for competitive reasons.

I can't explain your previous experience; perhaps you were at a company with firm pay bands, and they knew you were already at the top of your current one?

> you (largely) can't run a credit check on me without my permission

that is LOL incorrect. I know a car sales department lead, a licensed real estate broker who is also a rental apartment owner, and multiple small business owners that I suspect can all snoop on my US credit record pretty much at will. The second part of that is that each and every one of those people do lie on signed documents routinely, which apparently is normal.

Notwithstanding bad actors, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires[1], among other things:

1. Only business entities with a specific, legitimate purpose can request / access a credit report.

2. Consent must be provided depending on use case.

"Soft pulls" (e.g., pre-screened CC offers) can be done without your consent. (You can opt out of these.)

A dealership finance office or lease broker would absolutely run your credit, and typically there are explicit forms you sign authorizing such a check as part of that business transaction authorized by you. "At will" checks outside of such transactions would appear to be in violation of FCRA.

Conversely, credit agencies are required to provide you a list of all inquiries upon demand, so you can see if those parties you mention actually are running your credit without your permission.

[1] https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0096-fair-credit-r...

> Notwithstanding bad actors

Isn't this a huge point developing here now? that in consumer finance, those who run the show routinely are shown cheating overall. What is the gain/pain ratio on cheating in consumer finance? The list of legal requirements and safeguards seem to get longer at the same time as cheating on them gets more common.

I am not at all convinced that the consumer is protected here. Multiple avenues -- some offshore using agents who operate blatantly outside the law, and secondly accountants and admins who get numb to daily cheating, and do more of it. I will go full YOLO and add that I think the waves of pain killer abuse and common alcohol culture, directly contribute to norms of low-level cheating over money like this, especially where it is "just data" and not actual money moving around.

100%. Lots of gray area here in "shouldn't", "illegal", "can't", etc.

That's why, in my experience, I think TheWorkNumber has a pretty good and individual-centric approach. I have to explicitly grant access to that data on a per-request basis with some form of one-time key that I provide to the requestor.

Compare that to a credit check, where ("if you're lucky") you sign something saying you're aware of and approve the request, but without any sort of real technical control.

> you (largely) can't run a credit check on me without my permission

In my country there are forums where every once in a while a guy with access to these credit systems shows up and starts literally taking requests. People post names and he reveals everything about the person's credit history. For free and in the open.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was just as easy in the US for some bank or employer to look up your entire financial history.

without having to hunt down someone in HR

When I worked for UPS they specifically told me there was absolutely no way that HR would verify salary/employment over the phone for mortgage applications and the only way to do it was via theworknumber.com. UPS has ~500,000 employees so you can understand why they'd want to offload this work to a third party. I was working with a smaller mortgage company so they grumbled about having to do it this non-traditional way but it all worked out in the end.

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