Progress being made on stopping unemployment fraud in Pa.
The state tells 11 Investigates progress is finally being made in helping to stop fraud on Pennsylvania unemployment claims.
In an exclusive, one-on-one interview with Channel 11′s Angie Moreschi, the Deputy Secretary of Unemployment Compensation Programs, says new changes to the system are finally making a difference.
“We have changed the way our login works so individuals can retrieve their own login name, in case someone else has taken over their accounts, and in doing so that has stopped new claim hijacking from occurring,” Deputy Secretary Susan Dickinson told 11 Investigates.
Since last fall, 11 Investigates have heard from many unemployment recipients whose accounts were hacked, many not even realizing it happened until seeing our reports.
“I wouldn’t have known what was going on with my account if it wasn’t for your story,” unemployment recipient Pete Smock told us in January.
Slow to add New Security Measures
Despite the widespread fraud, the state has been slow to act in adding new security measures. First, multi-factor authentication was added at the end of February, but Dickinson says it did not help as much as many thought it would.
“Once we put it into place it did not stop the claims hijacking,” she said.
Dickinson says they did not see a real difference in fraud until implementing a new login process, which has a special link for users who are locked out of their account, but only helps if your email has not been compromised.
“That’s been tremendously helpful to individuals, to at least get back into their accounts. We may still have to help them with things like straightening payments, but at least they can regain control of their account and it does not get hijacked again,” Dickinson said.
As of January, the state’s Independent Fiscal Office estimated six billion dollars was stolen from Pennsylvania across all programs, a 13% fraud rate.
Dickinson is hopeful that it will improve moving forward and says more security measures are in the works.
Right now, the Department of Labor and Industry is in the process of investigating about 50-thousand suspected UC fraud cases, with a total backlog of about 78-thousand cases. L & I has said it could take years to dig out of the backlog.
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