California Unemployment Fraud Concerns Grow

Phil Zou
By Phil Zou
September 7, 2020NTD Evening News
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Concerns are growing that fraudsters are taking advantage of California’s unemployment benefits system. One fraud expert says it’s not just California.

Some residents have received dozens of letters from California’s unemployment agency. The letters have different names and social security numbers. Some even have debit cards.

The U.S. Department of Labor says California processed over 400,000 pandemic unemployment claims last week. That’s more than half of all claims in the country.

Fraud expert Frank McKenna told NTD News that California is not the first case.

“About 33 additional states have reported being attacked by these fraud rings,” he said. “California is just the latest.”

McKenna says scammers are taking advantage because states are not working together to crack down on the fraud.

“When Washington clamped down on the fraud, they simply went to another state, so they went across the country to New York and some other states,”McKenna said, adding, “they simply move to the next easiest target. That sounds like California was next in line. ”

In a letter to the joint legislative audit committee, California lawmakers approved an emergency audit of the state’s unemployment department.

The audit will look into the department’s efforts to deliver unemployment benefits, as well as backlogs and call center operations.

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