OSHA comes calling

[Jerry Peck]

Last week I received a call from OSHA's safety inspection department ... caller ID gave a number but no name, so I let it go to voicemail and (as I typically do) said to myself 'If it is important, they will leave a voicemail' ... and they did.

I listened to the voice mail and called the OSHA Safety Officer back, answered a few questions: 'No, no employees, just me, I work out of my home office.'; 'No, I haven't worked for a company who is required to have 3rd party safety inspections or a safety officer, at least not that I know of'; a couple of other questions, and then I got a 'Thank you, you've answered our questions, have a good day.'

Apparently OSHA is making calls to various types of business to schedule safety inspections.

Just letting you guys with employees know that they are making calls, from the internet, from other sources, I don't know where they got my name, but wherever they did, they are out there looking for companies and checking.

[Gunnar Alquist]

Last week I received a call from OSHA's safety inspection department ... caller ID gave a number but no name, so I let it go to voicemail and (as I typically do) said to myself 'If it is important, they will leave a voicemail' ... and they did.

I listened to the voice mail and called the OSHA Safety Officer back, answered a few questions: 'No, no employees, just me, I work out of my home office.'; 'No, I haven't worked for a company who is required to have 3rd party safety inspections or a safety officer, at least not that I know of'; a couple of other questions, and then I got a 'Thank you, you've answered our questions, have a good day.'

Apparently OSHA is making calls to various types of business to schedule safety inspections.

Just letting you guys with employees know that they are making calls, from the internet, from other sources, I don't know where they got my name, but wherever they did, they are out there looking for companies and checking.

Jerry,

That just seems really weird. How do you confirm that he is really Mr. OSHA guy and not some scammer. I realize that he did not ask you for your Social, but it just seems odd.

[Jerry Peck]

Jerry,

That just seems really weird. How do you confirm that he is really Mr. OSHA guy and not some scammer. I realize that he did not ask you for your Social, but it just seems odd.


Gunnar,

The callback number was the 800 OSHA number.

I think it is their way of searching for companies who 'fall through the cracks' of normal OSHA checks (businesses with actual work areas and ongoing projects). It would be a way to catch small contractors doing small jobs.

They didn't ask for any personal or business information, just basically 'do you have employees', 'have you done work for a company which is required to have safety inspections or a safety officer', and a couple of questions like that - nothing leading to requests for any other information. May have been because I keep by GC license active (although next year I will take that inactive)? I doubt it was because of my inspector and plan review licenses, although it could also have been because of the "construction" in my company name "Construction Litigation Consultants, LLC" as "construction" is a big target for OSHA.

That said, though, OSHA is for the protection of employees, and home inspector companies with employees could also be on their list, especially considering the hazardous conditions those "employees" would be put into (on roofs, in attics, in crawlspaces, looking into energized electrical panels, to name just a few).