Daniel Kelly figured that he called the Pennsylvania Office of Unemployment Compensation at least 200 times over the past few weeks.

Most of the time, the retired law enforcement officer only heard a busy signal. The first time he finally got through, Kelly was placed on hold for 3 hours and 40 minutes before he had to hang up to walk his dog.

We'll get to the second time a bit later.

Kelly, who lives in Harborcreek Township, works at a local golf course. His part-time job is seasonal, so he started collecting unemployment benefits in November.

"About two weeks ago I went online to check my account and saw that my benefits were being held due to an audit," Kelly said.

No other information was available online, so Kelly started calling the UC system — over and over and over again.

Kelly's story is not unique, according to state Rep. Pat Harkins, of Erie, D-1st Dist. Harkins said his office has helped about 10,000 Pennsylvanians with unemployment claims and problems since the pandemic started.

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Many of them have been workers like Kelly with mistakes or issues concerning their claims, while others have been employers who had to increase their unemployment compensation so their furloughed workers could begin receiving benefits.

"It got to the point that when I went out to walk the dog, I would have someone approach me with a problem," said Harkins, who used to be minority chairman of the state House's Labor & Industry Committee. "I received one call from a woman I knew who was so upset with the process that she was going to kill herself."

The main issue is that it is almost impossible to reach a UC representative in a timely manner, especially since a new online claim system was installed in June.

Until Jan. 27, people could call the UC system's main number, 888-313-7284, and leave a message to have a representative call them back. But so many claimants had questions or problems using the system's website that the call-back list grew longer and longer.

"Unfortunately, on a daily basis we were taking many more calls than we could return," said Susan Dickinson, Pennsylvania's deputy secretary for Unemployment Compensation. "So Jan. 27 was the last day we accepted (messages) and we are working on the backlog."

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At that point, the call-back list had grown to about 75,000 claimants, Dickinson said. It was taking staff up to two months to return a call.

People still have two ways to reach UC staff: Email their question or concern to UCHelp@pa.gov, or call the number and hope to reach a representative.

The UC's response time to emails depends on the type of question asked, Dickinson said.

"If it's a question that can be answered quickly, we can sometimes respond within a day," Dickinson said.

But more complex issues are taking up to two months to solve, and two months is a long time to wait for unemployment benefits.

Those who call will likely get a busy signal like Kelly did, especially if they call on Mondays or Tuesdays — the system's busiest days of the week. Dickinson recommended calling late in the afternoon for quicker service.

Even if a claimant gets through, they can expect a lengthy wait as staff continues to work their way through the pre-Jan. 27 backlog of messages. Those waits should shorten considerably when the backlog list is depleted, Dickinson said.

As of Tuesday, the UC staff had returned about 15,000 of the 75,000 messages.

Kelly kept calling and got past the busy signals on Tuesday. After a two-and-a-half hour wait and while he was talking on another phone line with the Erie Times-News, a UC representative picked up the call.

"All he wanted was my name, address and Social Security number," Kelly said. "They had those things when I submitted copies of my driver's license and Social Security card during my application process."

Dickinson said that UC staff needs to confirm claimants are who they said they are when there is a possibility of fraud on a claim. Kelly said he didn't know why his claim was singled out more than two months after he started receiving unemployment payments.

Though Dickinson can't guarantee a claimant won't have to email or call the UC with questions, she said there are things they can do to reduce the possibility.

She recommended visiting this website that answers frequently asked questions: https://www.uc.pa.gov/faq/claimant/Pages/default.aspx.

"It just would have been nice to know at the time why my benefits were being held for an audit," Kelly said.

Contact David Bruce at dbruce@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNBruce.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Unemployed workers in Pennsylvania face slow wait to resolve questions