Employment Verification

Any lending institution, property manager, government agency or other organization with a permissible purpose to verify employment, or income of an employee.

• An FCRA-compliant reason for requesting employment and/or income information. Common permissible purposes include: for the extension of credit, as part of an account review, for employment purposes, or when ordered by a court.
   
• Verifiers who use The Work Number are required to provide a permissible purpose for each employment or income data request.

• Consumer consent is the employee’s authorization for a Verifier to view their employment and income information.  
   
• Most often, consent is provided by the employee when signing a loan application, lease agreement or similar document when requesting a service or benefit.
   
• That consent is generally good for the life of the obligation (until the loan is repaid or the account is closed, etc.), which gives the credit grantor the option to re-check employment and income status as part of their ongoing account review process.  
   
• Consumer consent can be in the form of an ink signature or an electronic signature.  
   
• An employer code is a unique, six-digit number that allows one-time access to an employee’s income information. 539550 is the SFA employer code that identifies SFA employees.

1. When a SFA employee engages in a financial transaction, a Verifier will need to confirm the employee’s current employment and/or income information. Similarly, after an employee has obtained credit or another benefit, the grantor may need employment and income data for monitoring the account or enforcing the employee’s obligations. The employee typically consents to verification and ongoing account review when signing a credit application. The employee will provide to the lender/Verifier the Employer Code of 539550, the employee’s social security number, and advise the lender/Verifier to go to www.theworknumber.com.
    
2. All Verifiers must successfully pass a credentialing process that validates the organization’s legitimacy prior to receiving access to The Work Number.  Verifiers are also authenticated each time they log in to the system—a confirmation of both the organization and the individual user who is requesting the employee’s information. 
    
3. Every time a request for employment information is made, the Verifier must provide a valid reason or permissible purpose for the verification, as defined by FCRA. Common permissible purposes include: for the extension of credit, as part of ongoing account review, for collection of an account, for employment purposes, or when ordered by a court. 
    
4. Likewise, for every income information request, the Verifier must provide a valid permissible purpose and certify to The Work Number that the employee’s consent was previously obtained, typically in the original application.  If the Verifier did not previously receive consent, The Work Number directs the Verifier to contact the employee and request a salary key. A salary key is a single use, one-time code created by the employee via The Work Number website and provided to the Verifier, granting permission to obtain the employee’s information. The vast majority of verifications do not require a salary key, as consent is gathered at the point of application. Gathering consent at the point of application is ideal, as using a salary key slows the decision-making process and puts an added task/burden on the employee. The Work Number does not permit third-party debt collectors to access salary information even if they have the employee’s consent. 
    
5. Verifiers are subject to audits by The Work Number to ensure compliance with its data use policies.
    
6. With the above-mentioned safeguards in-place, The Work Number can provide verifications 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  A unique reference number is assigned to each verification request, which provides an audit trail and allows the Verifier to view the same information again for quality control purposes. This level of instant access and flexibility makes The Work Number highly useful to Verifiers, who readily use the system over trying to contact employers directly for the data. 

No, the employee is not able to pull their verification and that is by design. The Verifier wants that information to come directly from the employer and not from the employee to avoid receiving fraudulent information. While the employee is unable to generate their own verification, they can view their data on The Work Number through the Employment Data Report; this is required of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This report is accessible to the employee through Your Data Report or by calling the EDR Request Line at 866-604-6570.

No, an employer will not have access to that information. In accordance with FCRA, that information belongs to the employee, not the employer. The employee, however, is able to see who is requesting their data on the Employment Data Report, but the employer will not be able to see that. Employers can see overall verification activity numbers through the monthly activity reports.

Employee: 1-800-367-2884 M-F 7 a.m.-8 p.m. (CST) - TTY - hearing impaired: 1-800-424-0253
Verifier: 1-800-367-5690 M-F 7 a.m.-7 p.m. (CST)
Email: member@theworknumber.com 

Verification of Employment (VOE)
The verification of employment is the most commonly requested type of verification. It is typically used to grant credit or to provide employment history for pre-employment screening. This type of verification provides basic information about an employee’s job: employer name and headquarters address, title, employment status (active/inactive) and length of time with the employer. 

Verification of Income (VOI)
The verification of income contains basic employment information about an employee’s job, their employer, their title, employment status (active, inactive), and the length of time with an employer, as well as their income. The income information contains total pay for year-to-date wages. This type of verification is typically used for granting credit.

For employees who are no longer working at SFA, you can obtain your employment information through several options:

• You can create a new account under Equifax instead of trying to authenticate your information using the former employer code for SFA by clicking the link below to access the Equifax site.
  • Employment Data Report | The Work Number
• You can call the Employee Service Center at 866-604-6570.
• You can email EDR@equifax.com

The Work Number Solutions Support team is available to provide immediate attention to all service-related requests for The Work Number. This is NOT handled by the SFA Help Desk. The Work Number Solution Support team will respond to service-related technical requests and, if needed, will escalate and follow up internally until your question is answered or the issue is resolved. You can call the Employee Service Center at (866) 604-6570.