Washington Pauses Unemployment Payments To Investigate Fraud

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

OLYMPIA, WA — Washington will stop unemployment payments for up to two days while the state works to counter a sharp increase in fraudulent claims filed since the beginning of May.

According to the Employment Security Department, the state has paid out roughly $2.9 billion in unemployment assistance over the last 10 weeks, and jobless claims have soared to record levels in the wake of widespread business closures related to the coronavirus.

The Seattle Times reports impostors took an estimated $1.6 million between March and April, even before a surge in illegal activity this month.

"This is where bad actors have stolen Washingtonians' personal information from sources outside of the agency and are using it to apply for unemployment benefits," department commissioner Suzi LeVine said. "To be clear — Employment Security has not had a breach of our system and no data has been taken from our agency."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/washington-pauses-unemployment-payments-to-investigate-fraud/ar-BB1464or?ocid=hplocalnews

Earlier this week I received a letter from the state asking for more info from me on an unemployment claim. I hadn't filed a claim and let them know.

[iemitsu]

1. Happened to me too.

Sucks. I hope the fraudsters get caught.

[thinkingagain]

2. This happened to my sister

Back in March the beginning of the Covid layoffs. She was still working and said her HR person contacted her shared the info from ESD and said "do you have something to tell me" So then she had to do the ID theft stuff.
They knew her start date and everything.
Could not get unemployment people to tell her anything. They told her that info was private. Afraid people would show up at the thieves doors.
The police told her that if she had more info to share with them they could put a detective on the case.
ESD told her they look at them but there is really nothing they can do.
When you file you need to create a SAW acct, your name address email phone number start and end dates hours worked, SS# and bank if you have direct deposit.
So even if they are using peoples info they should be able to track down thieves using the fake address and bank info.
I can't understand why the police could not talk to ESD to track down these people. Even if the ESD can't share with the victim.
I am in the belief that peoples information is to easily gotten from people finder websites. Along with other public information sites.
Or if your a public employee requests can be made that forces the agencies them to give the names, addresses, birthdates, phone numbers, email etc of the all the employees/
It doesn't take much to build a profile making ID theft easy.
Then you throw in something like the Premera breach more info to add to that.
Possibly had the ESD acted back in March they would not be having such a problem now.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Problem is, thieves are more up to date on hacking computer systems

than the people who are trying to use them at work.

Can't tell how many agencies/offices are still using either Microsoft Explorer or some private company computer system, but the complaints about how slow they are almost match the number of complaints of systems just crashing.

[thinkingagain]

4. True thrives are always one step ahead it seems

But just read this from a near by county.
We have had over 20 reports of fraudulent applications for unemployment benefits since May 7, 2020. The majority of those reports are coming from employees of school districts, Okanogan County, and Washington State employees.
My sister does not work for Okanogan or a school district. I don’t know if Yo_Momma who started this post is a public employee.
But seeing this makes me feel I could not be far off in my thinking. Therefore I might have to write another letter to try and change the laws.
However sis thinks it’s coming from a
Premera breach from several years ago.
I just wish that we could do more to catch them and hand out deeper penalties.