INDUSTRY INSIGHT
Are agencies unintentionally contributing to unemployment fraud?
COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the American job market, and more than 57 million initial unemployment benefit claims have been filed since mid-March. But it’s not just the newly unemployed seeking those benefits -- the FBI recently reported a spike in fraudulent claims related to the pandemic by people using stolen identities.
How unemployment fraud is happening
Long before the onset of COVID-19, fraudsters could easily obtain personal identifiable information including names, Social Security numbers and home addresses from the dark web, data breaches, phishing attacks and even by cold-calling victims. Increasingly, fraudsters are using this stolen PII to submit fake pandemic-related unemployment claims online. Once the claim has been submitted, fraudsters can then request an unemployment benefits debit card and reroute all communications to their preferred contact information.
What’s more, once a claim is filed, the state mails a physical letter to the address on file with the claim details, including additional sensitive information of the person being defrauded. The California Employment Development Department Request for Additional Information Form, for example, includes the claimant’s full Social Security number. If the fraudster has already redirected the mailing address, the government is unintentionally exposing critical information that can put the victim at even more risk for continued identity theft.
In many cases, victims don’t know a claim has been filed on their behalf until it’s too late.
The FB ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
