Is It Normal for Companies to Charge Fees for Ex-Employee Verification Requests?

Hi All, Recently, we sent an employee verification request to a local IT & ITES company, requesting information like the period of employment and CTC, etc., and we received the following email:

"Hi HR, With regards to the employment verification, the applicable fees for this verification would be INR 500/- per verification. Request you to make the payment for the same, and the DD/cheque can be drawn in favour of '********************************'."

Do Companies Normally Charge for Verification?

Normally, do companies/organizations practice such things? They are not a background screening/verification company, and when some other company sends in a verification request about an ex-employee of theirs, they responded like this. We have not heard of this. Every other company answers a lot of requests like this on a daily basis about their ex-employees, right? They say that it is their company policy to charge other companies for verification requests.

Request for Senior Member's Opinion

Request senior members to comment on whether this is an ethical practice.

Regards.

Normally, companies won't charge for background checks for their ex-employees. I worked as a background verification coordinator, and I never received this kind of mail for a background check. Seniors, please advise on the same.

Cheers,
Sridevi

This is something strange for me. We have sent hundreds of employment verification cases so far but have never received such a response. Only in the case of educational verification do a few universities demand a DD.

I agree with what Ashu said. Normally, people won't charge for this kind of service. Only educational institutions do things like this.

It really looks strange, and what I hope is that the company you have asked is either trying to cheaply get some money for the verification, or they are currently loaded with so much work and operate in a traditional environment where they don't keep employee records in a manner that can be accessible online. They may need to manually check files and documents.

That's a rather strange revenue generation model! I wouldn't rely on the response provided by an organization like the one mentioned. Maybe you can conduct background verification from other organizations where the candidate worked or get a reference from the HOD/Lecturer of the institute where the candidate studied.

Thanks,
Robin Thomas

This is strange as well as annoying. Charging for a background check is not chargeable unless it's a background checking agency (charge if you are doing business). Some people are finding out really cheap ways to earn money, whether it is the company policy (which has no backing as there is no such law) or the individual responding to such verification are doing so.

I heard of a few recruiters sending false emails to candidates for arranging their interviews with a reputed construction company and charging each candidate Rs 200 for arranging the interview. This came into the notice of the company when the company's HR actually contacted one candidate who had fallen into this trap.

People nowadays find easy and cheap ways to earn money and play with the sentiments of the people they are attached to.

It is a corporate responsibility of an HR/Company to provide information to the Company/Bank/Other institutions verifying their ex-employees on humanitarian grounds.

As mentioned by one of the participants, when HR does not have information handy or is overburdened, they avoid such checks. However, it is better to simply say thanks if you cannot or do not want to provide the information. Using such indecent ways to escape the situation is bringing shame to the HR fraternity.

Regards, Swati

There are some companies that do this, and I feel that's fine because there is some effort put into it, and we can rely on the data given. You can probably question the company if you find out that the report provided by them is not correct, as you are paying for it.

I had an experience last year when I was asked to verify employee records of an ex-employee who left 8 years ago. The request came from his present employer, and they had asked for too much information. Though the basic information about the ex-employee was available in my company, I had to spend a lot of time gathering all the information required. At that time, I was stuck with other priority tasks, and the company sent an escalation email to my higher authority stating that the verification was not done within 2 days of their request.

Some companies or verification agencies send a big list of questions, and we need more time to fill in such information. If the companies can follow a standard template (like the ones we have here in CiteHR), we could save a lot of time in such processes. But the agreed fact is, we had to spend some quantified amount of time on these things, and so personally, I feel it is not bad to add a cost to it. Of course, nothing comes free of cost. But this can probably be waived if the effort taken in filling verification request forms is less.

Regards,
Raj.

Hi Raj, In this case, only the following information was asked to be verified. If you see, the employment period was just prior to the current one for which this verification was sought.

Candidate Details

- Candidate Name: *
- Employee ID:
- Period of Employment: December 2011 to September 2013
- Designation:
- Total Cost to Company: Kindly Mention
- Reason for Leaving: Kindly Mention
- Job Type: (Permanent/Temporary/Contract) Kindly Mention
- Eligibility for Rehire: Kindly Mention
- Additional Comments: Kindly Mention
- Verifier Name & Designation: Kindly Mention
- Verifier Contact Details: Kindly Mention

Even if it is for an employee who left us 8 years ago, you cannot say that we should charge because it takes some valuable time of yours. If you have the info, you provide it. If you don't, you say you do not have that info. I don't think, in any case, charging another organization like this is ethical or justified in a case similar to this.

Regards,