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Carie Mathis’ household activity collapsed when the pandemic began. The single mom went out of work to support herself and her 15-year-old twins, but couldn’t afford rent on their rodeo house. They moved in with his parents in Vacaville. She lies down in the garage so that the children can have a room.
In December, his unemployment benefits were suddenly suspended. “Every piece of income that … came in was cut off,” she said. She spent hours calling the California Department of Employment Development in vain. On New Years Eve, she finally received an email explaining that she was one of 1.4 million accounts the state had frozen due to suspicion of fraud.
The fallout from EDD’s massive account suspension continues to hit unemployed people who desperately need their benefits back. The agency has sent out emails and letters telling applicants how to prove their identity, but it is doing so in batches to avoid overwhelming its systems. EDD told lawmakers it could take until mid-February to complete the authentication of suspended accounts.
Even those who have been warned are in trouble. Mathis has spent hours online submitting IDs, calling EDD and then resubmitting them.
She is reduced to asking her parents for money for groceries and fears losing “everything I hold dear in the sun” if she cannot pay for her storage unit. She set up a GoFundMe to get help.
“I’m going to bed at night and my head is spinning like, ‘When is this going to end? “, She says.
“I’m at a loss for words to describe my frustration with this situation,” said David Chiu, state assembly member, D-San Francisco. He said he was working with other lawmakers on bills to reform ESD and probe its issues with crooks. “I suspect the level of fraud has made them think they need to close the doors urgently for everyone,” he said. He has always criticized the agency for not being “more perceptive” towards those who seek benefits.
“It is unacceptable that EDD cannot distinguish between legitimate applicants who have a history of employment and those who make things up as they go,” said Assembly Member Jim Patterson, R- Fresno. “The desperation is just heartbreaking.”
As frustration mounts, CEO of outside company verifying applicants’ identities says his company is working as quickly as possible to help genuinely unemployed people and wipe out armies of scammers looking to siphon billions of dollars from California .
“You have the Russians, Chinese, Nigerians, Ghanaians and even domestic criminals attacking this agency on a massive scale,” said Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me. “And these nation-state actors and organized crime networks … keeping them out while helping the legitimate people is really difficult, and right now organized crime is all over the place. ‘State.
EDD hired ID.me in October after a task force convened by Governor Gavin Newsom criticized the agency for being slow in processing complaints. The McLean, Va. Company performs identity verification for unemployment systems in 14 states, as well as other government agencies. ID.me said it checks nearly 2 million people a month across the country.
ID.me said it verified 847,289 California applicants from Oct. 1 through Jan. 12 and blocked 488,308 fraudulent claims in the state.
Hall said its automated, self-service process can handle around 88% of people, while the rest have to go through video chat verification. People who don’t have computers to do the online check are referred to EDD, he said.
Social media is teeming with stories of people waiting five or more hours for ID.me video chats, although Hall said regular wait times are 30 minutes to two hours. He said the company is hiring around 40 new video chat staff every week.
“Unfortunately, this influx of fraud and claimants is helping to lengthen wait times for legitimate claimants,” he said. “Users who are having issues often have been waiting for benefits for weeks and months, and they take that frustration on us, which is understandable.”
Others say they completed their ID.me verification without their benefits being reinstated.
“I followed everything I was supposed to do, and I’m still without benefits, (even though) he said ‘Congratulations, you’ve checked out’” two days earlier, Mathis said Thursday.
Hall said restoring the accounts is an issue for EDD.
The agency did not respond to questions. He sent a statement that said, “As the identity of claimants is verified, EDD removes barriers on claims so payments can continue for eligible claimants – which can happen within days.” Claimants should continue to certify their benefits while their accounts are on hold to minimize future delays, he said.
Shelly Ross’s pet-sitting company Tales of the Kitty has seen business implode. She laid off herself and most of her 14 employees, creating a GoFundMe account to help her employees.
She, too, had her performances suspended in December and spent hours trying to call EDD. On Friday, she finally received a message asking her to verify her identity with ID.me, which she did – but her account remained frozen.
“I’m not sure I can pay my rent in February,” she says.
Bank of America, which issues the debit cards used for EDD benefits, was sued on Friday for allegedly failing to sufficiently protect unemployment benefits from fraudsters.
“Bank of America failed to protect EDD debit cardholder accounts and then failed to process fraud claims once made,” said Brian Danitz, partner at the law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, in a statement. “Hundreds of millions of unemployment benefits in California have already been lost to fraud.”
Bank of America highlighted EDD’s comments that it did not ask the bank to include chip technology in debit cards.
“The Bank of America works with the state every day to prevent criminals from obtaining money and to ensure that legitimate beneficiaries receive their benefits,” he said in a statement. While most scams happen through bogus apps, he said, “When fraudulent transactions occur on benefit cards, we review those requests and return the money to the legitimate recipients.”
Mathis summed up the despair that many cut people feel.
“Even though there was a pandemic and the kids were homeschooled and the world is as it is, I still had hope,” she says. “I was saving money. We had a house that I was going to be able to get. Now I’m just in limbo and don’t know what to do.
Carolyn Said is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @csaid
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