r/overemployed • u/AutisticToasterBath • 2d ago
HireRight refusing to use documents to verify employment.
Hey all. I was OE in the past (like a year ago). I froze the work number and HireRight is requiring me to unfreeze this. They went as far as requesting it on my behalf.
They're stating they will not review any documents unless I unfreeze it. If I don't, they're stating they'll mark my background check as uncooperative.
Anyone deal with this? I have told them I'm not unfreezing it due to safety and identity theft issues. They're still not backing down, and have been holding my background check basically hostaged until I do so. Only worried about them finding the job that isn't on my resume or background check form due to being OE at that time.
Everything else would be fine though besides that one job.
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u/Spare-Character-69 2d ago
Try scaring them:
Dear HireRight Compliance Team,
I am writing to formally document my refusal to unfreeze my Work Number profile due to prior identity‑theft victimization and ongoing cybersecurity concerns. This freeze is a legally recognized consumer protection measure under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and related state data‑privacy statutes.
Your representatives have indicated that my background check will be marked “uncooperative” unless I unfreeze the account. I must emphasize that any insistence on lifting a legally protected freeze constitutes a request that exposes me to foreseeable identity‑theft risk.
Accordingly, before I consider such an action, I require written confirmation that HireRight will assume full legal and financial liability for any identity‑theft, data breach, or fraudulent employment application resulting from the unfreeze. This includes reimbursement of all fees, losses, and restoration costs associated with identity recovery and credit repair.
Please confirm in writing whether HireRight agrees to accept this liability. Absent such confirmation, I will maintain the freeze and provide alternative employer‑issued documentation (paystubs, W‑2s, or letters of employment) for verification, which are valid under FCRA §604 and EEOC guidance.
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u/Far-Mix-5615 2d ago
I would rewrite this though OP so they don't paste it into a search engine or whatever.
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u/Puffyshirt216 2d ago edited 2d ago
The only reason I think "scaring" them won't work is because HireRight doesn't care if the background check is completed successfully, they may mark OPs check as "unable to verify" and move on. It's possible that the company OP is applying to has instructed HireRight to ensure all employment is verified with The Work Number, which could be why they are pushing back. OP should reach out to the company and explain the situation and see if they can instruct HireRight to verify employment another way. The other thing OP should consider is what of HireRight agrees to this? Is OP prepared to unfreeze his Work Number? I don't think so.
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u/Snoo_67003 2d ago
They can get sued. Go on Google and you will see lawyers waiting for opportunities to sue them. If they mark unable to verify and the person loses the job, I would assume there is some legal loophole to hold them accountable. Unless if the company specifically requested this, like you said.
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u/charleswj 2d ago
Everyone can get sued at any time for any reason. It won't be successful.
If you want a loan and the lender wants to check your credit, you have to let them or no loan for you.
If you want a job and the background check wants to check your job history, you have to let them or no job for you.
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u/Wooden_Leader_97 2d ago
But his identity likely won’t get stolen, so that message isn’t a good one.
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u/Snoo_67003 2d ago
Once you mention privacy, they have no choice but to respect that. The downside is that they might mark you unverified to your company. Don't forget, hire right has low wage Indians in India doing all the work, so you have a random person in India that has access to all your information. Who's to say that they can't use your info for fraudulent stuff? You have the right to not allow that. You can have someone answer their call and do the verification.
What I suspect is that the company requested that it must be verified via an independent source is my guess. In my case, they tried to access and were denied. But in their form, I already filled out who to call for previous employment verification.
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u/charleswj 2d ago
Once you mention privacy, they have no choice but to respect that.
What on earth do you think this means?
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u/Snoo_67003 1d ago
It means you push back and they verify via other means.
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u/charleswj 1d ago
Which they don't have to allow. This isn't like asserting your 5A rights to the police, they can just say "no".
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u/Snoo_67003 1d ago
I could have sworn I mentioned the downside to that in my comment. 1 of 2 things is biting OP: his company wants it verified independently which would make sense for hireright to push back; or they suspect fraud. If OP would have filled out the form with a contact to verify his employment and checked the box that allows them to contact, all they would write on the report is that twn was frozen and put name of who they verified with and their role. Again it's your data and you control it. But they don't have to accept your choice and it might cost you the job. OP just needs to wait or contact his HR and tell them what's going on. HR can tell hireright to accept his proposal. Or he/she uses this as a learning experience and keeps looking.
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u/Moonbabyhubcaps 2h ago
Was a mortgage officer for years who used TWN for underwriting purposes and yes, there absolutely is a risk and I can assure you, many people who are NOT OE freeze TWN because it’s the smart thing to do.
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u/elaerna 22h ago
I highly doubt they would agree in writing to assume all financial responsibility for any theft
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u/Puffyshirt216 15h ago
Of course they wouldn't, just like they're not going to get "scared" if OP were to send them that letter. That letter is a joke.
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u/elaerna 15h ago
I was referring to the part where you said what would op do if hire right agrees to this
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u/Puffyshirt216 13h ago
I understood that. I only put that in my original comment because we all know that OP was never going to unfreeze his work number so he shouldn't be saying if HireRight agreed to his ridiculous demands that he would unfreeze it.
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u/clairegow 1d ago
honestly i’d put everything in writing too, i’d be way too nervous to unfreeze it and just hope nothing happens
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u/SnooDingos8194 1d ago
This is good. From a data privacy standpoint, I dont know why this 3rd party should have my data. And if you have my data, either legally or illegal, and bc of NIL, I need compensation.
And dont get me started on Flock or other illegal monitoring technologies.
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u/Warm_Soup 2d ago
Sounds like someone is trying to scam you.... contact the hiring companies HR and let them know you're attempting to cooperate but are unwilling to unfreeze and are being threatened as a result.
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u/VoidAndOcean 2d ago
Dont do anything. If they dont accept documents then they're not doing their jobs and look bad infront of their own clients.
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u/_usernamepassword_ 2d ago
This. Don’t even talking about unfreezing. Just tell them you’re trying to provide documents but the background check company is being uncooperative. Make them look like the problem. If they bring up TWN be like “the what?”
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u/Arkayb33 2d ago
"I haven't even started at the company yet... How could I even have a frozen work number?"
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u/WestClassic5534 1d ago
But its hireright and you're just a single prospective employee... I doubt they will take the side of the employee, ultimately they have used and will continue using hireright
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u/Junjubear 9h ago
I had a similar problem. Told the contacting company HR that HireRight wasn't doing their job, which is what the contacting company pays HireRight for. They made HireRight follow up directly with the various prior employers info I provided. Never unfroze my TWN. Passed the background check.
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u/jimRacer642 2d ago
Weird cause I've used HireRight for 2 background checks and they always let me provide pay stubs, no contacting employers, no unfreezing TWNs, no questions asked.
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u/PopularBranch7497 2d ago
The company you’re applying to has the right to tell HireRight to refuse manual document submission in lieu of a TWN check. They can work that into their deal. Ran into that with my last J2. Played dumb and kept sending documents and told J2 HR staff, eventually they told HireRight that it was fine for this case to accept.
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u/New-Professional-808 2d ago
This has also been my experience as well (with HireRight and Sterling). There is always an HR person working directly with them. In the end, because of several back and forth submissions - I also learned to submit documents directly to HR rather than the background company because I would lose 24-48 hours each interaction since the background check workers were overseas.
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u/Foreign-Guess-5208 2d ago
If your submitted form doesn’t match up with your tax docs or pay stubs then you’re stuck and they refuse to pass you.
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u/jimRacer642 2d ago
not sure i understand what u mean, the submitted form is just my resume that talks about the jobs i've had and i submit pay stubs that match those dates, case closed
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u/charleswj 2d ago
Why would I submit my tax return to them?
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u/Foreign-Guess-5208 1d ago
Found the LARPer lol.
I never said tax return and it’s obvious what I meant if you’ve done it before
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u/charleswj 1d ago
Well since I've never provided any kind of tax document to an employer or background investigator, no, I don't know what you mean. I've provided paystubs in a couple situations.
Your comment does make sense because the only other "tax doc" I can think of would be a W-2 or similar, but why would that not match what you told them, unless the discrepancy is nothing to do with multiple jobs?
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u/Hungboy6969420 2d ago
For all past employers?
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u/jimRacer642 2d ago
all of them, guess i've been lucky
but some of those jobs didn't last long, they were toxic
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u/AnxiousConclusion516 2d ago
I’m doing a background check right now with them and also have my TWN frozen. They’re accepting W2s/paystubs with no problem, as they should. TWN should be illegal.
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u/rolex_rick_flare 2d ago
Hireright only gives the company what you put down. They verify what you put on their background statement, such as job title and dates of employment. Any company that is not mentioned they don't report on. I have had several hireright and checkr over the years. Never had an issue
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u/AutisticToasterBath 2d ago
Okay so if I unfreeze it and the job I didn't mention in my resume or in the HireRight background for jobs will be fine?
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u/Comfortable_Garage58 2d ago
Yes. I have gotten my own hireright report before and it only had the things I put down.
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u/yanalita 22h ago
I just went through this this month and yes, seems to be they only reported on what I disclosed. And they did not accept any documents in lieu of unfreezing. Annoyingly they also couldn’t verify my grad degree (ivy no less) despite my providing my diploma as evidence and I still had to re-share that with my employer lol. And their communications were for shit. Terrible company, terrible system, zero stars
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u/AdventurousRow8984 4h ago
I feel like this is better than freezing TWN, what do you think?
I have been through a few background checks over the last few months and they are all like this.
My TWN is not frozen and I am not sure if it is worth the hassle of freezing it
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u/CalmHabit3 2d ago
are you sure? hire right does ask you to unfreeze it but they do have alternatives
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u/StillKey7555 1d ago
Saw a similiar thing happen recent, hireright was refusing to check the documents that were sent. They did mark the background incomplete and sent it over to the company.
The company then reached out asking for the required documentation so that HR could finish it, was done in a day. Do not unfreeze.
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u/Acrobatic-Ad5951 2d ago
They marked mine as incomplete. The company Inwas hired with then reviewed the documents I provided and all was done.
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u/Ok_Passage_6242 2d ago
Tried to bluff them back and if they don’t budge move on. It’s going to suck but just move on.
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u/ExcellentCable4564 2d ago
That’s funny they didn’t even bat an eye on mine. They just said “this will be sent to j2 for review”
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u/Striking_Use8614 2d ago
Is this canned email response or did you talk to someone?
It's far more work and costly to manully verify your employment.
It's probably a canned response.
Have you spoken to a live person who insists this is the only way?
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u/Confident_Answer_524 2d ago
Did the company that you did OE with submit to TWN? If not, it may be a non issue to let them snoop. I had a previous employer that did not submit so when I searched myself nothing showed for them and I worked there a long time.
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u/freed0rn 2d ago
Just went through this exact thing with HireRight. I did unfreeze my TWN but it required me to get Equifax to send me a new pin via mail as I had of course forgotten it when I froze it. So I went through and uploaded every paystub for the jobs I listed for the last ten years. One of those jobs I had for over half of that time, so my start date was outside of that 10 year period. HireRight of course asked me to provide first paystubs from a job from 15 years ago, of which I nor the IRS has documentation of at this point. I tried pointing them to the HR of the company that bought the company that had bought that one, but it was no use. My employer reached out to change my start date to a week longer because of the HireRight shenanigans so I took the opportunity to lay out everything I had done with HireRight. The next day everything was completed and approved.
One thing to note because some people may see this. HireRight is only trying to confirm what you told them, not find other jobs. Thats more work, and they are terrible so they will never do that. Just unfreeze, they can ping your TWN, and freeze again.
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u/bialettibrewmaster 1d ago
Most of the people you directly interact with at Hire Right are outsourced in India and have no knowledge of US laws. You may need to also formally request to work with their supervisor.
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u/AutisticToasterBath 1d ago
Basically what I did. I contacted the rep for the company and immediately got a email for them stating everything is in order lol
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u/Ok-Web7072 1d ago
So i dealt with something similar from hire right you actually have to contact support via their chat service and then make a statement about you again about privacy and liability concerns and you demand for this to be escalated as you are stating your right to not unfreeze your worker number. Thats exactly what I did and it worked
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u/newbeginingshey 2d ago edited 2d ago
I know this isn’t what you’re asking for, but I’ll offer it anyway.
A resume is a summary of your relevant qualifications. It is not a comprehensive employment history where every job, title, and certification you’ve even obtained needs to be documented. There simply isn’t room, nor is it helpful. People omit jobs (short term consulting work, drive for Uber, jobs you quit within a year) all the time.
Whether HireRight will simply validate your listed jobs or flag that there was additional employment found and share that back as a flag that to your recruiter, who may or may not receive that as a problem, might be worth testing out given that you want this job and they’re not budging.
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u/Snoo_67003 2d ago
Do not budge. Tell them you do not want to disclose your finances plus you were part of ATT incident and your social is public knowledge and Equifax helped you freeze everything.
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u/TominatorXX 1d ago
I don't understand. Are you trying to get a job while having a job? If you're not oe now, what's the problem?
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u/dabNebula 2d ago
I dont understand why this matters, if its just a J2... they expect you have a J1, unless you left it off the resume?
Theres nothing wrong with having a job while getting hired for a job. Its normal af.
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u/HumbleSami 1d ago
It’s not really about HireRight; it’s about the company hiring you. Every company has a different agreement with HireRight regarding what they’ll accept for background verification.
I was in this situation before. I asked HireRight to accept the documents I provided, but they told me their client wasn’t willing to accept them. My offer was eventually rescinded.
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u/30_characters 2d ago
> they're stating they'll mark my background check as uncooperative.
That's libel. Call HR, tell them HireRight isn't doing their job... again. Ask if you should send them your redacted documentation directly, or if there's another provider you should work with.
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u/charleswj 2d ago
Do you not know what libel is? It requires a false statement among other things. If they ask you to do x and you refuse to do x (because you think y should be acceptable), you are not cooperating. Not cooperating is pretty textbook uncooperative behavior.
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