In March of 2011 Protection Plus Solutions was made aware of two individuals that had defrauded several families out of nearly $35,000 after they’d been soliciting (door to door) home owners for various services including Cable TV and Renewable Energy. The two gentlemen in question obtained employment by working as 1099 contractors with various door to door marketing companies that targeted more affluent neighborhoods. With the information they obtained from their customers after selling them an upgrade or new product, they took this information and obtained credit cards and various other consumer products. Buyer BEWARE …This is IDENTITY THEFT.
With the high turnover of employees in door to door sales, it is not unusual for a potential employee to have worked at a number of door to door marketing companies in the recent past. Given the amount of customer information obtained, best practices should require that all references and prior employment be checked on each and every employee. In addition, a background check should also be done. One safeguard that Protection Plus Solutions has in place for after hire employment is CrimSPY, which re-runs a background check every month on your employee. Should a criminal hit be found after hire, Protection Plus Solutions notifies both the Corporate Offices and the Contractor immediately.
With the high turnover of employees in door to door sales, it is not unusual for a potential employee to have worked at a number of door to door marketing companies in the recent past. Given the amount of customer information obtained, best practices should require that all references and prior employment be checked on each and every employee. In addition, a background check should also be done. One safeguard that Protection Plus Solutions has in place for after hire employment is CrimSPY, which re-runs a background check every month on your employee. Should a criminal hit be found after hire, Protection Plus Solutions notifies both the Corporate Offices and the Contractor immediately.
PROTECTION PLUS SOLUTIONS ALERT! Failure to run a background check on a new employee who services the consumer may be considered “failure to use reasonable safeguards” in the protection of consumer information. More and more identity thieves have been obtaining employment for the sole purpose of acquiring valuable customer information. With the downward trend in the economy, identity thieves now target door to door sales jobs for this very reason!
Corporate and Sub-Contractors may worry about the cost of background checks for each and every hire, but the cost of not running a proper background check could be much higher. Each time a sales rep provides a new customer with a privacy statement they’re promising the customer in writing that they take reasonable safeguards to protect their consumer information. Reasonable safeguards must include knowing who your employees are and whether or not you have just hired an individual or individuals that have questionable concerns on their background check. A powerful attorney would have a field day with this one and your liability for not conducting a background check is MIND BLOWING especially with today’s litigation happy society!
You owe it to your company and to your customers to run a thorough background check. Don’t let your company end up as a headline in the Newspaper, on TV news or on the Internet! Hire with the knowledge of who your Sales Reps REALLY are…!!
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