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Comment by hughrr | Hacker News Reader

I rather liked it when employers asked about pay history because I used to lie about it. I managed to double my salary in two job jumps!

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Lots of French employers will ask for multiple months of pay slips so they can screw you in pay negotiations.

You are lucky they did not use equifaxs https://theworknumber.com/ to get your salary info. Or maybe they did and your salary info wasn’t there. Many of my employers have reported my salary to that database without my consent. It is easy to obtain. There was an article on HN about it within the last month.

How does a company participate in this system? Are there headcount/turnover/etc requirements? What prevents someone from setting up companies that claim to employ anyone (you can "apply" for a nominal fee online and you get "hired" immediately and your chosen salary figure gets sent to these assholes)?

I think it’s difficult unless your company uses a big payroll processor like ADP or Paychex, who in turn report to TheWorkNumber. Faking payroll through one of those companies probably wouldn’t be worth the effort and you’d be setting yourself up for tax issues.

Most payroll companies support the integration. So step 1 is probably pay for an expensive payroll platform. They are going to have meta data for the fake company, so your $2MM salary is coming from a 1-10 person company with no website or anything might be suspect.

This is why I redirect the question to my comp requirements, instead of my pay history. Any company that absolutely insists on salary history is not one I will work for anyway.

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