Attention members: Be on the lookout for Unemployment fraud

MCO has become aware that State officials in the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) are warning Michiganders that scammers are actively filing imposter unemployment claims, utilizing stolen or false information, in order to deceive the State and Federal Government and receive unemployment benefits fraudulently.

According to a UIA press release and media reports, no personal data from claimants has been stolen from UIA’s system directly and the Michigan State Police Cyber Command Division, Department of Technology Management and Budget and UIA are all coordinating their efforts to stem this threat with the United States Secret Service.

In addition to Michigan, it is believed that Washington, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Florida have all been targets of similar UIA scam attacks.This news is particularly troubling as unemployment claims continue to skyrocket in Michigan and will lead to interruptions and delays in the UIA filing, verification and payment disbursement process, which is already under severe stress and backlog.

To prevent future incidents and protect yourself, we ask that all MCO members remain vigilant throughout the Coronavirus pandemic and if you believe you are a victim of an imposter claim, please notify UIA immediately online through the Report Identity Theft link.

Members are also encouraged to review this document created by UIA to protect against identity theft.

As more information becomes available, MCO will continue to send out communications. To ensure you receive these updates, if you haven’t already done so, we encourage members to provide us with their personal or home email address as you may not always have access to work email and not all information can be shared utilizing work accounts. Subscribe to our emails.

(Thank you, SEIU Local 517m, for this story.)