Tell HN: Salary data is for sale • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#181

Post by kmonsen » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:47 AM UTC

starwind wrote: post #167

realist39827 wrote: post #104

Yes, it's concerning, but let's be realistic about this. I'm surprised HN readers are so surprised by this! On a scale of Room 641A ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ) to carriers divulging location when you enter somebody's phone number ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684 ), I'd say this is 2/10 bad. This really has nothing to do with employers colluding and trying to keep salaries low. Instead,…

> there are legitimate reasons why this system exists. Not really. > If you're applying for a mortgage, how do you expect them to verify your salary? You can submit paystubs, but those can be faked. Same with bank statements. Faking paystubs and bank statements is called "fraud" and most people are pretty reluctant to commit it. > And if a bank calls your employer to verify your salary, and they have your DoB, SSN, a…

Also there a way less invasive ways of certifying your salary to banks. All places I have worked in the US I could automatically print a letter saying something like "we certify XXX works here with a base salary of YYY".

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#182

Post by BeefySwain » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:48 AM UTC

lumost wrote: post #145

BeefySwain wrote: post #5

I checked earlier today and yep, my employer is selling my data and future earnings potential to the company that is infamous for poor data security. A confounding factor is that as a hiring manager, and at least for all the hiring decisions I have been involved in, I know we did not use this to check candidates. So what's the upside? EDIT: ADP Workforcenow appears to do this automatically. I'm curious to find out if…

you know, I spoke with a company not too long ago and they gave me an offer that was 30% lower than what I currently make. The gap was entirely due to not accounting for public company RSU grants (that I had already mentioned) In hindsight I wouldn't be surprised if their department used this tool to check my current cash income and automatically generated an offer. I wouldn't trust this data for much, and I can almo…

The report tells you in the last 24 months who has looked at this info, so you could check that.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#183

Post by divbzero » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:48 AM UTC

ralph84 wrote: post #172

registeredcorn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly do employers and banks stand to gain from sharing this information? Is it an exchange of information for money?

For employers it offloads employment and salary verification. Instead of having to pay someone to answer verification calls all day they just upload the data to The Work Number and let them handle it.

Are employers obligated to provide employment and salary verification?

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#184

Post by ucm_edge » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:49 AM UTC

Both my YC backed previous employers have reported me and checked up on me in there before hiring me. My current employer has not. I was able to increase TC just shy of 150k when I jumped my current employer.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#185

Post by kmonsen » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:49 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #138

Victerius wrote: post #4

If this is correct, then it would be risky for someone to lie to a new employer about their former salary in order to receive an offer for a higher pay, because the new employer could use this service to cross check the employee's claims.

You don't need to lie. There's nothing wrong with saying "My current salary is $xxxxx, but I feel that my employer undervalues my skills so I want $yyyyyy. It's why I'm leaving my current role." There is no reason why your future salary has to be based on your current salary. If the employer you're negotiating with disagrees then walking away is the best option because they undervalue your skills too.

Then they will just offer something in the middle and try to talk you into it.

That being said, at least for the big companies the initial salary is not that important. In some ways you are just setting yourself up for disappointment since if you start at the top of the band there will be no significant raises without a promotion.

For RSUs it has a pretty significant effect for 4 years though.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#186

Post by throwawayboise » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:50 AM UTC

cmeacham98 wrote: post #125

BeefySwain wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hijacking here to say, literally all you need to get access to someones employment + salary history is their SSN and birthdate. edit: and a past employer that used this system Birthdays are extremely easy to get (public record), and I seem to recall a specific large organization leaking a bunch of SSN's not too long ago.......

Unless you are very young (read: born after 2011) your SSN can be trivially brute forced if an attacker knows where and when you were born, because those details were (before 2011) mapped onto 5 of the 9 digits in an SSN.

You should assume your SSN is public anyway. There have been so many leaks, and it's not like a credit card where you get a new number if it is compromised.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#187

Post by Thorrez » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:50 AM UTC

MichaelBurge wrote: post #117

dboreham wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole "verify your salary with employer" process is BS. Lenders can verify income by requesting your tax returns, and N recent pay stubs (source: I own my employer and have verified income this way, since obviously they are not going to call myself up and ask me to verify my own income). This is only about reducing their verification costs. If there needs to be a giant database of everyone's income, the governmen…

If you verify with tax returns, it would be easy to borrow money from a friend and count it as income every year just for loan qualification. And then borrow more money from a bank, wait 6 months for seasoning, and use it as down payment to buy real estate. And if the loan gets sold to the government, it needs to meet government underwriting criteria and the lender has no free will. Especially for residential mortgag…

>If you verify with tax returns, it would be easy to borrow money from a friend and count it as income every year just for loan qualification.

Huh? Isn't it fraud to declare something as income that's not actually income? Also, if you declare something as income, don't you have to pay tax on it? So this scheme will mean you have to pay a bunch of taxes you wouldn't have to otherwise. This sounds like the opposite type of fraud people do. People usually under-report income, not over-report it.

"Yes IRS, I made $1T last year." "Ok cool, send us $400B in taxes please."

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#188

Post by qbasic_forever » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:50 AM UTC

snambi wrote: post #127

jf wrote: post #30

Learning that this website exists, and then finding detailed and accurate information in my record is what convinced me to start sharing my salary data with my peers. As I see it, this database is a breach of an implicit social contract between me and the companies that I work for. Since my employers apparently have no issues sharing my salary with their peers, I see no reason not to do the same with my peers.

If all employees share their salary information with each other, it becomes a headache for the employer. Each employee may quote the other person's salary demanding a raise. This is the reason behind the "keep your data confidential" idea.

And this is bad for the employees how?

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#189

Post by starwind » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:50 AM UTC

kmonsen wrote: post #181

starwind wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are legitimate reasons why this system exists. Not really. > If you're applying for a mortgage, how do you expect them to verify your salary? You can submit paystubs, but those can be faked. Same with bank statements. Faking paystubs and bank statements is called "fraud" and most people are pretty reluctant to commit it. > And if a bank calls your employer to verify your salary, and they have your DoB, SSN, a…

Also there a way less invasive ways of certifying your salary to banks. All places I have worked in the US I could automatically print a letter saying something like "we certify XXX works here with a base salary of YYY".

Bingo. Your employer will work with you when you need help getting a mortgage. Not some random person who calls and says they work for a mortgage company

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#190

Post by axutio » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 5:50 AM UTC

realist39827 wrote: post #104

Yes, it's concerning, but let's be realistic about this. I'm surprised HN readers are so surprised by this! On a scale of Room 641A ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ) to carriers divulging location when you enter somebody's phone number ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684 ), I'd say this is 2/10 bad. This really has nothing to do with employers colluding and trying to keep salaries low. Instead,…

> If you're applying for a mortgage, how do you expect them to verify your salary? You can submit paystubs, but those can be faked.

Why not keep this, and punish people who submit fake paystubs for committing fraud? I could also take advantage of my employer by faking other documents and signatures, but I (and most people out there) don't do that because that's illegal. If your potential employees are so untrustworthy that you can't trust them not to defraud you, you have bigger issues as a company anyways.