I hope you're in your Jumpseat now, strapped tight, cause here's something you ought to know about verifying your employment:

Chosen by some individual or 'task team' at United Airlines, and managed and run by the Frick Company, VeriFacts Services is the what outside lenders (like mortgage brokers) must use in order to verify your employment.  And get this: VeriFacts will charge the lender money to verify if your are employed at United Airlines.  It's either $3.95/minute or $4.00-9.00 per record check, depending on whether they use the 900 number or the 800 number.

Say you want to buy a house.  You visit the bank to get a loan and the loan officer, among other things, simply needs to verify that you are indeed employed at United Airlines.  That loan officer cannot call United Airlines, speak to a human being, and get this information directly, as in the past.  They must now dial a 900 number (like a sex line) and get charged money to determine that you are currently employed by UAL.  They can also dial an 800 number, but will still get charged for the verification.

It gets more ridiculous:  You yourself would also have to pay $9.00 should you wish to access your own salary information.

Melvin telephoned the VeriFacts 1-800-458-8360 number just three minutes ago, and checked out the series of automated prompts that a person considering lending y0u beaucoup $$$$ for a home would have to deal with.  The instructions and efficiently of this telephone service are the same automated par as our own FLT-LINE.  Perhaps even a bit worse, cause you have to pay for it.

According to VeriFacts, they currently post the following information on their website:

Question:
Why is there a fee for verification through VeriFacts?

Answer:
Our customers have made a business decision to outsource the verification process, which previously constituted only administrative overhead for them, to VeriFacts. Because the information is made available much faster, accurately, and conveniently, VeriFacts charges a fee for access. In most cases, however, verifiers can actually save money on their manual processes. Lenders, for example, can potentially qualify applicants faster, saving money and actually allowing them to close the loan and earn interest faster. All verifiers can benefit from the time and labor saved.

So, the lenders can 'qualify applicants faster' and United no longer takes the administrative responsibility for verifying that their own employees do indeed work for them.  And in the end, I'm sure that cost will more than likely be passed on to us in some form or another by the lender anyway!  Everybody benefits all right, except you and I.

Special thanks to Brent Morita, SFOSW for informing us of this fee.