Bizarre-o Encounter with Human Resources Dept: what would you have done?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In May I re-financed my home. About three days prior to the closing, my mortgage broker’s admin phoned me at work asking who might be available right then and there who could verify my employment on the phone. I transferred the call to my immediate superviser and a few minutes later he told me that although HR forbids him from verifying employment, he didn’t see any harm, so he did to help me out.

My broker sold my loan within days of the closing to Bank A. In the beginning of Aug, Bank A is in the process of selling my loan to Bank B. Simultaneously, Bank A audits my loan. Unbeknownst to me, they call my superviser, again, on Aug. 13 to re-verify employment.

Yesterday I get a phone call from someone in my comapny’s HR dept. In a very accusative and aggresive tone, she stated that Bank A had sent a letter to HR stating that they had spoken to my superviser on Aug. 13 to verify employment. HR lady asks me point blank if this is so. I responded that I did not know. She then stated that the letter from Bank A asks if the information my superviser conveyed in the phone call was true. HR lady concludes, however, that if there was no phone call, she would be forced to reply that the info was not true because there was no phone call. Then she asked me again if my superviser had spoken to my bank on Aug. 13. Undaunted, I replied that I did not know and realised I had a witch hunt on my hands. This went back and forth for about fifteen minutes until she asked me again for the fifth time whether my superviser had spoken to my bank on Aug 13 when I asked her if she realised that if she were to respond to the bank survey that the info was not factual, that that would imply I did not work for the company which in itself would be false. She did not see it that way. I told her I would be speaking to my mortgage broker and my lawyer. That pretty much ended the conversation.

I conveyed this info to my supervisor who indicated he had had a similar conversation earlier with the HR lady and had denied talking to my bank on Aug 13 even though he really doesn’t remember whether he did or not. (I wish he hadn’t told me that.)

2

Send a pay stub to your mortgage folks…

let them figure that one out after HR department denies your employment…

f*%kers – they act like you work for the CIA or something. Pretty strange policy for a compant to have.

3

All you need to do is as TalkingHead suggested and send in a pay stub. I would however log your encounter just in case as they may decide to do something just as silly as deny your position there.

What is the world coming to when one cannot expect even a current employer to provide simple and cursory employment information?

4

It not the employment verification at issue here - it’s who in the company does it.

My company has a similar policy, although they don’t conduct witchhunts when it is violated (and such a policy will, inevitably, have violations).

The actual policy is that ALL questions about employment go to HR. This is, in part, to prevent someone who was fried from having a friend at the company give them a better reference than the company would, or to preven the dishonest from faking employment for an acquaintance or relative, or other abuses and crimes.

The biggest trouble comes when HR doesn’t handle the policy well.

At my company, for instance, the voice mail for everyone in the HR department has an option “For employment verification questions please press [some number]” That way, someone like your supervisor can transfer such a call to anyone in HR and be assured that it will be either properly directed by a human or give the caller the correct means of getting hold of the proper person.

When we do have situations like the above, what usually happens in my company is a Stern Reprimand from HR to the guilty parties informing them of company policy, and a letter sent to the inquiring party confirming employment but requesting that all future inquiries be directed to the proper person in HR. The “3rd degree” interrogation you endured is puzzling to me - either there is someone on a power kick in HR (hey, it happens) or else there is something else foul afoot and you just bumped up against it. Stay clean and stay out of trouble.

(Why, when this happens, do they ask you the same question 14 times? What’s the point in that? Do they really expect the answer to change? Ever notice they hate the phrase “I don’t know” - especially if you really don’t know?)

Meanwhile - yeah, if I had had that sort of HR experience (and I have, although not about this) I’d document everything, keep notes, and yes, contact a lawyer.

5

I don’t think this is your problem. HR can harldy deny that you work for the company. I doubt that the pycho HR person’s boss would want to open up the company to that sort of liability. She’s just pissed that your supervisor violated company policy by verifying employment when he knew that he was supposed to pass such things to HR. Your supervisor may be in for a bit of trouble, but that shouldn’t affect you.

You could send a memo to the head of the HR department expressing your deep concern that pyscho lady implied that she would fail to verify your employment as a result of a trangression of your supervisor.

6

This topic was accidentally started twice, so I’ll close this copy and direct further comment to the othe copy, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=132233