Unemployment Fraud Impacts MA Residents Filing Claims
The Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA) has released information about the impact of a national unemployment fraud scam on Massachusetts claimants.
According to a story reported on by WWLP/22 News Springfield, the state reports that fraudsters have been using stolen personal information from earlier, unrelated commercial data breaches and continue to attempt to file large numbers of false claims through the Massachusetts unemployment system.
DUA has strengthened its identity verification process which has caused delays in payment for some claimants.
DUA has also been working with state and federal law enforcement agencies, municipalities, and state constituent services to address the national unemployment fraud and recover fraudulent payments.
They are using information from persons reporting that their identity was fraudulently used to file a claim and claims that have failed the verification process.
According to the DUA, their call center has 670 employees answering approximately 16,000 calls per day, with another 300 people who work verifying claims. The DUA customer service department can be reached at (877) 626-6800. The highest traffic hours for the DUA call center are on Monday mornings.
Claimants should also be aware of an unemployment phishing scam that is occurring in Massachusetts and similarly in other states.
Massachusetts constituents have received a text message that includes a link requesting unemployment claimants enter their login and password on a site that looks similar to the official Unemployment Insurance (UI) Online website.
If a claimant has received this text message, please do not respond. DUA will never ask a claimant to reply to a text or email with personal information.
There is lots more to the story. Please check out the full report at WWLP/22 News' website here.
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