20 Dec Fraudulent Unemployment Claims
Be on the lookout for this scam! A client of Reconciled Solutions recently reached out to me because they had received a letter from Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) saying that he had filed for unemployment and they wanted to confirm the unemployment payments. IDES has been paying “someone” for his unemployment, all the while, my client is working away, having never filed for unemployment
IDES estimates that there have been at least 212,000 fraudulent cases since March, and that number is growing rapidly in recent weeks. “IDES is experiencing fraud in an order of magnitude we’ve never seen before,” said Kristin Richards, Acting Director of IDES.
The story is the same all across the county. So far this year, California alone has paid more than $110 billion in unemployment benefits to people who lost their jobs due to COVID. $400 million was paid to the names of prison inmates, and at least $2 million worth – including $21,000 using the name and social security number of Sen. Dianne Feinstein – were filed by a woman who had been fired by the Employment Development Department in 2018. Bank of America has identified about $2 billion worth of fraudulent claims.
If you think your information has been used to fraudulently file an unemployment insurance claim, take action immediately! Click here to report Unemployment Insurance Fraud. This is a US Dept. of Labor site that can connect you to your state website and tip hotlines.
