Unless you are Rip Van Winkle, you realize these are tough times for the economy. All the wrong things are down, such as manufacturing, exports, retail, and all the wrong things are up, prices for goods, unemployment, energy costs. Pretty crazy.
In these times reputable people and reputable people in business can tend to get desperate. They can make stupid moves, and they can do things where scammers take advantage of them. And then there are the people who can convenient forget their business ethics and start to cheat a little, and then a little more. They may overcharge or shave a little in inventory or services. If they are a client they may pay you way late or not even pay you at all. They can lie, cheat, and steal.
Most of us have been through it, and some of us are experiencing it now. Additionally, we can have desperate job applicants lie during their preemployment screening process by claiming degrees they don’t have, experience they lack, or disregarding the one thing they might have–criminal records.
It just makes good sense to run thorough background checks on your job candidates and run corporate research including domestic business credit reports as well as international business credit reports on prospective clients. It’s terrific they are coming to you for business, but then are they coming to you because they left their last vendor in the lurch? You don’t want to discover you are so fortunate only because they haven’t paid their last providers and that you are the next guy down on the list.
So check them out before you hire. And check them out before you do business.
One reply on “Some Businesses in Tough Times Can Lose Their Sense of Ethics”
This is a very useful and and a intresting post. What you have said is uite true. Some even use social networking sites to check the background.