Document fraud forensics
How to spot a fake pay stub
A forged stub is built to fool your eyes, and it does. The signals that actually catch it live in the file data, not on the page. Here are the seven we check.
10 min read
Blog
Field notes on screening applicants.
ProofUp was built inside a property management company that kept finding forged pay stubs. These are the things we had to work out, written down.
Document fraud forensics
How forged pay stubs and bank statements actually fail, at the data level.
Income math and qualification
Calculating real monthly income, and what rent-to-income ratio to hold.
Screening operations and risk
Override rates, delinquency outcomes, and measuring your own exceptions.
Compliance and affordable housing
FCRA, fair housing, and the LIHTC and HUD document sets.
Income math and qualification
How to calculate monthly income from a pay stub
Multiplying weekly pay by four undercounts by nearly 8%. Here are the correct multipliers for every pay frequency, and the three cases where the arithmetic does not apply.
8 min read
Document fraud forensics
PDF metadata: what the creator and producer fields tell you about a pay stub
Every real payroll provider emits a consistent PDF fingerprint. A forged stub carries the fingerprint of whatever tool made it, and that mismatch is checkable.
8 min read
Document fraud forensics
An edited PDF usually still contains the number it used to say
Annotations, hidden text layers, and incremental saves leave the original values inside the file. The rendered page hides them. A parser does not.
8 min read
Income math and qualification
Rent-to-income ratio: 2.5x or 3x, gross or net?
There is no industry-correct threshold. What matters is that yours is written down, applied identically, and matches whatever your application platform already uses.
8 min read
Screening operations and risk
What a screening override really costs, and how to measure your exception rate
An override is not automatically wrong. Some are legitimate cash-income applicants. Measuring which is which is the difference between a policy and a habit.
8 min read
Document fraud forensics
Year-to-date math is the check a forger almost never gets right
Gross pay times pay periods elapsed should equal year-to-date gross. When it does not, the number that was changed is usually the one you were shown.
8 min read
Income math and qualification
A DoorDash driver has no pay stub, and rejecting them is not a screening policy
Gig, cash-paid, and self-employed applicants fail a document-based income check by definition. The account, not the document, is where their income is visible.
9 min read
Screening operations and risk
Physical vs economic occupancy: why your occupancy looks fine and NOI does not
A delinquent tenant is 100% physically occupied and contributing nothing. The weekly report can read 94% while the number owners underwrite against slides.
7 min read
Income math and qualification
A guarantor who was never income-verified is a signature, not a backstop
Most guarantor policies verify the applicant thoroughly and the guarantor barely at all. The guarantor is the party you are relying on if things go wrong.
8 min read
Document fraud forensics
How to verify a bank statement on a rental application
Sum the payroll deposits per statement period rather than annualizing one deposit. Then check the things a forger gets wrong: the producer field, the bank name, and the balance math.
8 min read
Compliance and affordable housing
FCRA and fair housing in tenant screening: what consistent has to mean
The exposure is not a wrong decision. It is two similar applicants getting different answers with no written rule to point at.
8 min read
Income math and qualification
Income from the account beats income from a document, and the reason is not fraud
A connected bank or payroll account gives you duration, variance, and every income source at once. A pay stub gives you two weeks the applicant selected.
8 min read
Screening operations and risk
A name and an SSN on an application do not tell you who showed up to the tour
Identity verification pairs a government ID with a live selfie matched against it. Without that pairing, a credit report describes a person who may not be your applicant.
8 min read
Compliance and affordable housing
Income verification for LIHTC and HUD: the document set, and where it breaks
Affordable screening is a different document set, not a stricter version of conventional. A flow that only reads pay stubs cannot process the applicant at all.
8 min read
Screening operations and risk
Count your overrides by reason, or you are managing a screening policy you cannot see
Override-approved applicants default at roughly 4 times the standard rate. Which reasons drive that is knowable, and almost nobody reports on it.
8 min read
Screening operations and risk
Two properties reporting 3% delinquency can be measuring completely different things
Delinquency has no standard definition. As-of date, what counts as rent, and how you treat move-outs each move the number by more than most operators realize.
8 min read
Compliance and affordable housing
A voucher holder's rent-to-income ratio should be run on their portion, not the contract rent
Applying a 3x standard to the full rent when the resident pays 30% of adjusted income declines qualified applicants, and in a growing number of jurisdictions it is unlawful.
8 min read
Compliance and affordable housing
Assets, not income, are where LIHTC certifications actually fail
A $9,000 savings account adds imputed income to a household certification. Missing it is a file finding, and the whole household has to be recertified.
8 min read
Compliance and affordable housing
A blanket criminal record exclusion is the screening policy most likely to produce a complaint
HUD guidance treats blanket criminal bans as a disparate impact risk. What survives review is a policy with a lookback, a severity test, and individualized assessment.
8 min read