This news from the Social Security Administration:

Social Security will no longer accept manual telephone SSN verifications in less than 10 days from today!

Currently, our telephone agents can verify up to five employee SSNs for employers. Beginning fall 2009, Social Security will no longer provide this service. You must use TNEV or SSNVS to verify SSNs. Employees who verify SSNs for their employers must be registered SSNVS users in order to access TNEV and/or SSNVS. If you are not a registered SSNVS user, don`t delay register today for SSNVS. TNEV is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

A Social Security Trace and a Social Security Verification are similar, but not the same thing. Only an employer can contact the Social Security Administraction and verify the social security number of an employee.

A Social Security Trace can be run by your employment screening vendor before a background check for another reason than verification. 

Well… criminals lie. Over 40% of applications have misinformation, whether intentional or not. The Social Security Trace can pull the addresses of the applicant, so that you can run County Court Record Checks in all the counties of residence. (Generally for the last 7 years.) Applicants with convictions often ‘forget’ to … Continue Reading