Equifax (EFX-NYSE) collects your detailed salary and paycheck data, period by period, from employers and sell it to financial companies and debt collectors. NBC broke this story first:
http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16762661-exclusive-your-employer-may-share-your-salary-and-equifax-might-sell-that-data
One practical use to make of this news is that when you apply for a loan, you may want to consider just telling the lender that your current salary is "exactly what The Working Number tells you." If the lender asks you separately for this information, they could be attempting to administer a kind of truth-telling test. If there is a discrepancy, they may conclude that you are lying and therefore less trustworthy. Since you may not know exactly what your income is anyway (net? gross? monthly? biweekly? it is easy to get a wrong number), you reduce your risk of being falsely accused by refusing to estimate or report a number. Or you might report all of your income, which won't match their number, which doesn't include dividends and interest.
A few choice quotes from NBC's article: "Equifax brags that The Work Number makes debt collectors' jobs easier." "...there are no special restrictions on how employment reports (such as salary information) is used for non-employment purposes..." "Its database is so detailed that it contains week-by-week paystub information dating back years for many individuals, as well as other kinds of human resources-related information, such as health care provider, whether someone has dental insurance and if they’ve ever filed an unemployment claim."
Not every employer sends in their information. As of 2009, the Equifax database covered only 30 percent of the U.S. working population. So if you do use the aforementioned trick, be sure first that your salary data is indeed in the Equifax database.
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