A friend contacted me a couple of days ago about an apparent case of unemployment fraud.
Yesterday I got in the mail at my house three letters from the State Unemployment Office stating that a claim in my stepson’s name had been filed on 6/3 and okayed 6/4.
He doesn’t live here (he’s in Oregon somewhere) and the claim did not use his middle initial.
Who can I report this to?
I recalled a Star-Advertiser column about what is a very real problem, and tracked it down.
Here’s an excerpt from Christine Donnelly’s Kokua Line column published on May 31, 2020 (“Kokua Line: Oahu man’s stolen identity used in false jobless claim“).
Hawaii’s DLIR [Department of Labor and Industrial Relations] was alerted May 14 by the U.S. Secret Service that such fraud might occur and has taken steps to prevent it and track it down, Bill Kunstman, the department’s spokesman, said Friday. He declined to disclose specific tactics for security reasons, but said DLIR is working with the Hawaii Bankers Association to identify suspicious accounts. It’s too early to say how much money, if any, has been stolen from Hawaii, he said.
With your permission, we shared your query with Kunstman, so rest assured that the department is aware of your situation. As for others in the same boat, Kunstman said a message recorder would be set up for 586-8947 and that notifying the department of potential fraud by email also is an option.
Anyone else affected can send a note to dlir.director@hawaii.gov; put “Fraud Alert” in the subject line. In the email, briefly explain what happened and include your name and phone number.
So I forwarded the information over to my friend.
“Thanks Ian,” she replied on Monday. “Phone number does not take messages (?) so sent email. It will be interesting to see if they follow up.”
And then today she added a follow-up.
Sadly, they do not answer the hot line and just told to call back and – of course, no reply to my email to the DOL with “Tax fraud” in the subject line.
I’ve called maybe 10 times and emailed twice ???
I think this is all probably much worse than we know or think and hopefully we have not paid out MANY claims to fraud…..
And so it goes.
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One reason why this is so easy to do is that the prior employers are not notified that a claim has been filed. Why did the state of Hawaii stop doing that? I’ve been an employer in Hawaii for 30 years, but had no unemployment claims for many years until this year. In the past when we did have a claim we were always notified by mail, and asked to state why the employee was no longer employed. This year, one employee – who refused an offer to work when we re-opened- filed for unemployment compensation and we were never even notified. I’m glad she had the money, but why aren’t prior employers told? Employers pay for it, by the way, the State does not.
Because of fraud concerns, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program sent out letters to applicants. The letter provides instructions about how to report that they did not file the PUA claim and may have been the victim of identity theft. People who receive the letter and did not apply for PUA should go to https://pua.hawaii.gov, then click on “Use a Letter ID to Report Identity Theft.” Then, enter the information from the letter to invalidate the PUA claim. You will not receive an email confirmation as the claim contact information.
The following was received in an email from Bill Kunstman at the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations:
I am writing to let you know that the fraud number does have a voice mail that asks individuals reporting fraud to leave a name, social security number, and a call back number. The voicemail greeting is long but does provide those instructions at the end.
Below there’s a statement from the department for those individuals who have received letters for PUA claims they did not file.
“If you receive a letter giving you notice of a Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claim, please follow the instructions at the bottom of the letter:
If you did not file a claim for PUA benefits, please go to PUA.HAWAII.GOV and click on the link “Use a Letter ID to Report Identity Theft. You will need to enter the Letter ID and Claim ID found on this notice.”
Hawaii is a victim along with many states of what appears to be a Nigerian fraud ring as warned by the Inspector General of the U.S.DOL and the Secret Service. The majority of fraudulent claims are in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. See: https://www.wired.com/story/nigerian-scammers-unemployment-system-scattered-canary/
Bill