A statement and update on the Imposter Fraud

Dear Members of Congress, Legislators, Local Leaders and Staff Members,

I wasn’t planning on sending you another message this week, but I need to pass on this breaking news and share with you the statement we just posted to the newsroom on the imposter fraud that is happening right now for unemployment benefits in Washington state. In my Monday email (below), I flagged this, but I realize it’s now hitting a fever pitch and wanted to alert you to new actions we’re taking.

In the statement, we emphasize that no data has been breached here at ESD.

Specifically – this past week, we have seen a dramatic rise in imposter fraud. This is when someone’s personal information has been stolen from some other source and is used by criminals to apply for benefits and route those payments to their own bank accounts. Imposter fraud has affected employees from the public and private sector alike.

I wanted you to be aware right away of an important decision I made to help combat this fraud. We’re going to delay payments to all applicants by one or two days so that we can make sure claims are legitimate.

Below is what we know about imposter fraud, what you should know, and what we’re doing about it. Most importantly, what people can do right away:

If a fraudster uses someone’s identity to apply for benefits:

1. The fastest and best way to report it is to go to the Fraud page on the ESD website and follow the directions.
2. Today, we will launch a secure portal on that page for victims to be able to upload the information we need from them for our investigations. Tomorrow, we will have that capacity for businesses to do the same for when multiple employees are impacted.
3. If someone is a victim of imposter fraud, they usually learn about it via their employer (who has received a standard notification from us) or a notification to the individual (in which we’re seeking more information to complete the claim). That means some of their identity information has been previously stolen and they are a victim of identity theft. Our recommendations are:

1. • First: Again, report it to ESD – go to www.esd.wa.gov/fraud
   • Go to the Attorney General’s Recovering from identity theft or fraud web page and follow the instructions.
   • Go to the FTC identity theft website, https://www.identitytheft.gov/. This resource has the most current, detailed step by step process for reporting and protecting people from further victimization.
   • Request free credit reports via https://www.annualcreditreport.com/ and review them for other fraudulent activities.

Here’s what we know

Again, ESD and the Human Resource Management System (data about state employees) have not experienced any data breach; fraudsters have not stolen the information from us. Instead, they are using information that they had previously stolen from other sources and using that to apply for unemployment benefits.

This type of “imposter fraud” isn’t new, nor is this unique to Washington. We work year ‘round to prevent it. We often find it either during the application process, during our routine practice of contacting employers to inform them of a former employee’s application for unemployment benefits or when routinely reaching out to claimants for more information.

What’s new is the volume of fraud. It’s on the rise all across the country, in large part because of the high volume of claims due to the COVID-19 crisis and the huge amounts of money we’re paying as a result of the CARES Act.

We’re doing a number of things to combat it. In addition to holding payments for one or two days, we’re:

• Dramatically increasing the number of agents on the fraud hotline; 100 more of whom just started yesterday.
• Hiring more fraud investigators.
• Cross matching data with other state agencies and across the country to detect fraud activity.
• Working with the U.S. Department of Labor to detect and prevent fraud.

You also should know:

• If someone is a victim of fraud, they will not have to repay the money.
• If someone is a victim of fraud and then needs to apply for benefits, they will still be able to do so.

We appreciate your help in spreading the word
Please know that we’re nose to the grindstone working to address the fraud cases and to prevent fraudsters from filing false claims. I know that some of your constituents (and maybe even you) have been victims, and I’m so sorry about that!

Thank you for your partnership!

Suzi LeVine

Commissioner, the Employment Security Department

Please follow me @ESDCommish

(pronouns: she/her/hers)