I got a call along similar lines from a lady trying to make sure of a former roommate's reliability before hiring her for government work. She had, admittedly, at least warned me that this was likely to happen.

My mother got a rather harder one, as someone we knew from dancing put her down as a reference for his security check. We didn't know his So well, and his ex-wife and two kids had in fact returned to Russia, so the questions weren't Quite so cut-and-dry...