February

Pinkerton, a risk management company, is encouraging UK businesses to tighten up on employee screening prior to Brexit in light of the commercial uncertainty.

The company operates in security and risk, and sees Brexit as a reason to ensure the security, compliance and and reputation of UK businesses across all sectors.  As the company says, workers are a company’s most important asset, yet that person walking through the door every day is potentially also one of the biggest risks to electronic information, physical and human security, and reputation, if not vigorously vetted prior to placement.

There are more than 500 million people in the EU. Those of working age and with relevant skills are still free to travel and apply for jobs in the UK, at least until the end of March 2019. This poses challenges for employers verifying potential employees’ movements, backgrounds, and right to work whilst demonstrating regulatory compliance and maintaining efficient processes during employee onboarding.

As a result they encourage UK businesses to tighten up on employee screening in light of the commercial uncertainty over Brexit

We have recently reviewed our processes for requesting, chasing and receiving references for individuals going into roles regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Feedback from clients has been extremely helpful during this review.

As a result, we have improved how we request references from organisations regulated by the FCA and how we check the references received back from those organisations. We have also enhanced how we display results within the final report by adding a list of employers from which we have sought references, whether the employer is regulated by the FCA and whether we received a ‘regulated reference’ from them. This list is located after the contents section of the final report:

When you place your order, to help us fulfil your requirements correctly, please do continue to tick the FCA references box on step 1:


FCA references will only be sought if you have a package of background checks agreed with Verifile that includes FCA references. To set up a package or for any further information, please contact your Account Manager.

Bestselling author Daniel Mallory admitted in an interview with the New Yorker that he lied about having brain cancer to help him kick-start his career.

Mallory said that the fabrication was sought to mask his embarrassment towards his past struggle with bipolar disorder.

He told the Mail: “It is the case that on numerous occasions in the past, I have stated, implied, or allowed others to believe that I was afflicted with a physical malady instead of a psychological one: cancer, specifically.  I felt intensely ashamed of my psychological struggles – they were my scariest, most sensitive secret."

“And for 15 years, even as I worked with psychotherapists, I was utterly terrified of what people would think of me if they knew – that they’d conclude I was defective in a way that I should be able to correct, or, worse still, that they wouldn’t believe me."

The author of The Woman in the Window shot to fame last year when it was revealed that he was he face behind the pseudonym A.J. Finn.  Before his rise to stardom, it was found that he had deceived many peers in the publishing industry with a wave of lies to bolster his chances of getting ahead. And it seems that lying about his health wasn’t the only thing that he falsified.

The serial liar pretended to be British when he is in actual fact American.  The Mail reported that when applying for a role at a London publishing house, Mallory claimed to have worked as an Editor at Ballantine when he actually worked there as an Assistant.

Additionally, Mallory claimed to be a ‘double-doctor’ – having earned a Ph.D from Oxford and American University which was also false