Cadence, thank you for your input on this. As a newbie, I have similar questions/concerns as the OP where I understand the need for screening, but am petrified about what could happen if the provider decided to mess with me by contacting my employer, or if LE got involved.
One way I verify employment is that if the gentleman can send me an email from his work email. This will suffice if it is a large verifiable company that I research if necessary, before clearing that phase of the process. I reassure the prospect, that I will not respond to that email, and will delete immediately upon receipt.
Originally Posted by Candence
Just one quick comment - please don't rely on an Email address to verify the sender's employment. Unless you know how to interpret the Email headers, please be aware that the "From" Email address field can be easily spoofed by a person familiar with relatively simple Email protocols.
(If you know how to read the header information, then you can filter out a majority of spoofs - not 100% of course, but it is almost impossible to identify someone who can mess with the Email header information because it has to be done from within that organization's Email servers)
Just thought I'd share