I've never heard of such a thing but it undoubtedly happens. Your pay stub is really just showing the floor though. For many positions, there are fairly regular bonuses, variable comp, etc. So, in reality, there's usually some wiggle room in providing current salary info while still being essentially truthful.

I've been recruiting engineers for almost 20 years, and I have probably had a dozen cases where a client asked for a pay stub around the time an offer is presented. It's obviously rare, and most of the time it was for high-ticket talent that seemed to be paid noticeably above market rate.

I have to say, I find that sorta weird. At that point, I would think if the pay stub didn't square with the claimed salary (and there was no convincing explanation for the difference), they'd almost have to not hire the person. And, if it did square, it's like they'd already decided the price tag was too rich for their blood.

Excellent points, and I'm not necessarily condoning the practice (I don't control that). It does seem they are trying to call a bluff where you either expose the bluffer or get locked in to a rate above market. I can't recall an instance where the stub was provided and the client didn't make a competitive offer, but my data set isn't large.

Maybe it's a "There must be a reason they value them so much" (even though we don't see it) sort of thing. Hardly an uncommon situation. Doesn't mean it worked out in the end :-)

I've seen colleagues in Sales offer to show W-2 information, to disclose all compensation.

It sorta makes sense in that context given variable sales comp plans. "I really am that good. Here are the audited numbers to prove it."

Photoshop is a wonderful thing :)

You can get fired if they figure out you have been fudging the figures and 'lying' to them. I'm not sure how they would know, but if they do, it can create problems for you.

Error-level analysis of the Jpeg. As you say, if it comes out later that could have bad legal consequences - the term is 'detrimental reliance' and the dishonest person could conceivably face fraud charges. Even if not, it could easily become a a career-damaging topic of gossip.

Re: error analysis—it's a "picture of line-art" kind of document, isn't it? Not even a watermark. So: scan it at super high resolution, blow out the contrast, countour-vectorize it to SVG (effectively equivalent to recovering the original PDF), edit that, print the result, and then scan the print.

(It just occurred to me that if there was "an app for that" in this case, no parent would ever be able to trust their child's report card again.)

Don't even both with all of that.. Just make a reproduction from scratch.

Make it look more or less like the original. As long as nobody sees the original next to the mock-up, who's ever going to notice that one or two digits changed?

I have yet to find any case law where this occurs.

Regarding gossip, "Would you trust a company who checks up on someone's previous paycheck?" seems to quell that pretty quickly.

Scan pay slip, edit in photoshop, print out doctored image, take photo with digitial camera. :)