Another company is in the news because a former employee allegedly found it easier to take clients’ money instead of investing it as promised.

Firm pays $2M for bad hire

Man accused of rape, embezzlement

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1174955

This employee allegedly had over $400,000 in debts before he was hired, a fact easily identified within seconds after running a credit report, which costs about the same as lunch at Applebee’s.

And a more comprehensive background check, one that includes education and employment verifications, a criminal records search, a motor vehicle report plus a credit check? Roughly a single day’s pay. If the new hire is a financial advisor handling millions of dollars of client assets, a background check probably costs the same as one hour of their salary.

We have seen more stories about embezzlement these days. My colleague blogged on another example just last week. It’s saddening but not surprising to see companies get burned because they do not background checks. And while there is FAR more awareness of the need to conduct employment screening compared to 10 years ago, many organizations still have a ways to go in terms of reducing their risk and evaluating potential damage.

Consider this company. It’s not only the out of pocket cost to investors this financial services firm has to contend with. There’s the hidden expense as well. Current and potential investors who may leave track marks sprinting in the other direction. When all is said and done, this will cost far more than $2 million dollars. It’s too bad so much money could have been saved by spending so little in advance.  

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This is a sad post. My beloved Syracuse Orangemen were in the news recently, and not in a good way. It didn’t involve a horrific, last second loss, the kind that stays with you for 22 years. But it also didn’t involve the type of win you spend the next 22 remembering. 

It’s about the best player ever to don the Orange uniform. One that went on to achieve hardwood honors at Syracuse, then the Detroit Pistons. He was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame, and turned that fame into fortune in the boardroom, starting a steel supply company that eventually became a manufacturing mecca of sorts in a downtrodden section of Detroit. 

Recently, he ran for and was elected mayor of that city. And if there is such a thing as a living legend up on the Hill in Syracuse, it is none other than Dave Bing.

And now we find out that he too said he had a degree and didn’t?

Bing made false college degree claims

School records dispute graduation year, MBA for Detroit mayoral candidate

http://www.freep.com/article/20090311/NEWS01/903110308/

It’s important to note Bing DID quickly complete his remaining coursework and received his B.A. in 1995 once he was notified it wasn’t conferred back in 1966. So this isn’t a case where he’s been misstating his credentials for 40 plus years. While my love of all things Orange may blind me, I can understand the logic behind the B.A. “confusion.”  But claiming on a video to have an M.B.A. too?

This story originally broke in March. This article has a few comments from Bing. 

I admit I was shocked to hear this. He is a community icon and revered in both cities. I still think of him as a legend for his contributions to both, on and off the court. Our research shows about 7% of all applicants claim a degree or diploma but don’t have one. I just never thought I’d hear Dave Bing’s name in that context!

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An alleged out of state swindler has been accused of promising fake jobs to a region starving for work. It happened in Florida, but it’s a scam that could happen anywhere in America.

Here’s the play. As unemployment rises, simply charge eager people looking for work money to do a “background check.” Then pocket the money and disappear when they try to follow up.

Man promises 2,500 jobs, ends up wanted for fraud

Click below for the full story.

http://www.ocala.com/article/20090415/ARTICLES/904159974/1001/NEWS01?Title=Man-promises-2-500-jobs-ends-wanted-for-fraud

How should people know to be on the lookout for this type of scam? They usually don’t, and that’s why it works. Honestly, I’m surprised this company allegedly only charged $24/applicant.

From our vantage point, very, very few companies pass along the fee for doing the background check.  employeescreenIQ does not recommend clients do this to their job applicants and doing so is not an industry standard.

Remember the old adage.  If it sounds too good to be true…

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What would the Noid do? We make it a policy while blogging to never directly call out a company for not conducting proper background checks.  However, this story is on every news outlet, newspaper, blog, video service and twitter on the internet.  I have seen and heard this story at least 25 times in the past 24 hours.  Our friends a Cheezhead did a great job explaining it!

After a shocking video that showed Domino’s employees putting food up their nose and passing gas on salami surfaced on YouTube to an audience of millions, the pizza chain went into a damage control frenzy.

The perpetrators were captured and slapped with felonies. Their criminal history has been revealed much to the disgust of the American public, many of whom wonder how one of the accused, who had a rap sheet including sexual battery and possession of stolen property, was eligible to be hired for a job dealing with the public in the first place.

An exhausted and embarrassed Patrick Doyle, Domino’s president, appeared in his own video today in which he assured the public that everything has now been handled appropriately. The statement borders on begging. Check it out for yourself.

If they do revamp their hiring policies, would you give them a second chance?

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I was happy to see this article this morning on Reuters.  We still get a lot of questions about using Polygraph tests as a mode for pre-employment screening.  Years ago, lie detector tests were huge in the pre-employment realm, like many things it was legislated out of existence for that purpose.  The polygraph industry was once quite large, now it is limited to a few select specialists.  This article does a great job in summarizing the Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) and its limitations.  Enjoy!

Lie Detector Tests

Who is Covered

The Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) applies to most private employers. The law does not cover federal, state and local governments.

Basic Provisions/Requirements

The EPPA prohibits most private employers from using lie detector tests, either for pre-employment screening or during the course of employment.

Employers generally may not require or request any employee or job applicant to take a lie detector test, or discharge, discipline, or discriminate against an employee or job applicant for refusing to take a test or for exercising other rights under the Act.

Employers may not use or inquire about the results of a lie detector test or discharge or discriminate against an employee or job applicant on the basis of the results of a test, or for filing a complaint, or for participating in a proceeding under the Act.

Subject to restrictions, the Act permits polygraph (a type of lie detector) tests to be administered to certain job applicants of security service firms (armored car, alarm, and guard) and of pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors and dispensers.

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After tens of thousands of emails sent to us by our blog fans, we have finally decided to go mobile with our blog!  Ok, I may be stretching the truth a little bit (ok a lot) on how many requests we have received, but we thought we would add this great feature.

Mobile web surfing is definitely a large part of the future of the internet.  Now you can browse blog.employeescreen.com from your iphone, blackberry, android phone or other web enabled phone!

I wanted to personally thank Cheezhead and the folks over at MJobs for this wonderful idea!

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I’ve heard of going paperless, but this takes it to a new level. Click on the title to read the full story…

Budget Shortage Leaves Morrow County Court Without Paper

This would be comical if it were not so absurd. But there are serious ramifications to this. 

The Sheriff apparently has trouble buying paper of his own.  If the criminal case is not filed on paper, does it even exist?

I’m not necessarily trying to be funny. These are legitimate questions. Will alleged offenders continue to sit in holding cells, at taxpayer expense far beyond the cost of office supplies, until volunteers drop off a box of paper so the arraignment can be typed up? 

I can’t wait to see how this plays out. Somewhere, I hear Dwight Schrute in the distance…

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I ran across this Opinion column published in the Ithaca Journal today and my interested was piqued.  Apparently, back in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court decided against the release of criminal conviction information for a particular individual citing that the disclosure of that information would be “an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”   Now, 20 years ago my interests were more so geared towards Barbie dolls and ballet class rather than what the Supreme Court was up to.  But 20 years later, speaking from the viewpoint of both a pre-employment screening professional and a private citizen, this decision bothers me.  And as an employer, it should bother you too.

While I can’t recount an instance where the Court’s decision has created a roadblock during the criminal background check process, I can’t say it never will.  But if it ever does, you can bet that the pre-employment screening industry will fight it tooth and nail.

Some food for thought: Five of the nine current Supreme Court Justices were not serving on the Court twenty years ago when this decision was made.  If this case was being decided or re-visited today, would the outcome be different? 

Twenty-year-old lawsuit still hurts FOIA laws   

By Robert Freeman, Ithaca Journal

When I read the Supreme Court’s decision in Reporters Committee v. U.S. Department of Justice 20 years ago, I asked myself: How could nine justices be so wrong? I’m asking the same question today, because that decision has led to damage done to the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and it simply does not reflect the realities of 2009.

The case involved a request for the criminal conviction history of person alleged to have been involved in organized crime, and the information was stored in a government database. Although the information could readily be found and retrieved, the Court determined that disclosure would result in “an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” That standard is contained within the federal Act and its equivalent is included in numerous state FOI laws, including the New York Freedom of Information Law (we call it “FOIL”).

Most Americans know that the fact of a conviction, a finding or admission that a person has broken the law, is public, and that anyone can walk into a courthouse and gain access to the record of the conviction. The Supreme Court knew that, too, but it found, in essence, that there are thousands of courthouses in this country, and that, even though they are available, they involve items of “practical obscurity” – yes, they are public, but they can be very hard to find. Because that is so, even though they were easy to find in a government database, the Court determined that they could be withheld on the ground that disclosure would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy.

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U.S. DEPT. OF JUSTICE v. REPORTERS COMMITTEE, 489 U.S. 749 (1989)   (Supreme Court decision)

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Many criminal records don’t deserve to be expunged.  But who could argue this one?

‘The Friendship Nine Act’ would pardon segregation protesters

Local legislators sponsor bill to remove convictions

By Andrew Dys, The Herald – March 10, 2009

Finally, 48 years late, the nine black Rock Hill men who changed the world with their courage to fight segregation could get a pardon for committing a crime that should have been no crime at all.

The crime in 1961 in South Carolina was protesting segregation of the races — laws and customs later found to be unconstitutional and immoral. Yet the “Friendship Nine” spent 30 days in jail and have had criminal records all their lives for sitting at a whites-only Rock Hill lunch counter.

Those criminal convictions would be wiped clean forever under a bill that could be introduced in the Legislature as early as this week, lawmakers said. The proposed law would pardon those nine protesters, and so many others just like them around the state, for challenging segregation during the civil rights era.

The law would be named, fittingly, “The Friendship Nine Act.”

Click here for the rest of the story

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My colleagues are better at the lighthearted posts, but I’m taking a swing at this one!

Woman Says She’s ‘Embarrassed’ By McNugget Meltdown

Fort Pierce Woman Calls 911 3 Times After McDonald’s Runs Out Of Nuggets

I’m proud to say employeescreenIQ offers many services to its clients. We feel these can serve as a useful predictor of your potential employee’s future job performance. How they deal with a stressful situation, for example.

But I’m disappointed to say there’s nothing we offer that will find out if your candidate complained because they were only given one packet of barbeque sauce.

Click to read the full story.

http://www.wpbf.com/cnn-news/18856490/detail.html

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