Reaching out for advise as wife and I are in new territory. Someone stole her identity back in August 2020 and got $2600 in unemployment over two months. We "owe" it back by late May to state of Texas or else. They think we cashed the money and simply owe it back. Not true…

We have a letter from her employer and know the scammer opened a bank account but we got that closed. One check went to them and one to us. We shredded our check as we thought it was a scam at first… not realizing we were scammed.

We reported it about 12 times between August 2020 and March 2021 both online and by phone. Letters stopped then so we stopped trying. Accountants we use told us to file it on our tax return to not raise any issues as it didn't hurt us.

Fast forward now, and they sent a final statement (first in a year). The log in to talk to someone fails as they entered the wrong birthday. You can't by pass the claims department and talk to someone about fraud. My wife has spent 10 hours on the phone the past month trying to talk to someone just to see if they have any claims on record of us reporting it, and it never works out. We reported everything again online and no one calls us back.

It really feels like a black eye on how the state government is handling this.

Not sure of the next steps. Any advice would be appreciated. I obviously don't want to pay the $2600.

One of the physicians I work with had this happen to him. Very similar story as he reported it all and then got notice demanding payment. I'll ask him next week about what came of it.

It's ridiculous.

I had two close coworkers who were notified by HR during Covid that someone had tried to claim unemployment benefits in their name. IDK if the claims were denied or what, but they didn't have any problems like this (thank goodness). Evidently this was a widespread problem.

gigemhilo said:

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The letter should detail how to dispute this. If not, go to the twc website - there should be guidance there.

This is not uncommon - I have seen it happen to several folks after Covid.

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Thank you all for responding. This is where we run into roadblocks. We have to call a number on the form and insert information. When we do, it says it's incorrect and hangs up on us.

We've also done everything online.

We will look again tomorrow and see if we are somehow missing something.

TX AG 88 said:

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Contact your State Rep and State Senator's offices for help. Can't hurt.

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This is what constituent services is for.

It's happened to us twice in 10 years and the solution was so simple I don't even remember what we did.

I seem to recall that it's so common that there's a check box on the form to say that it's not a valid claim.

No need to waste time with state reps, etc., we've never had to so much as follow up on it when we sent the explanations back.

call your local TV station: https://www.cbsnews.com/dfw/local-news/investigators/

TWC has local offices in all Texas cities of any decent size. Might be a good idea to track down a number for that office and call them. You'll get a human being which is at least better than a phone tree.

Bumping this for one. The box check was not available for us. My wife had to provide paperwork and talk to someone on the phone.

State of Texas finally called us back on a freaking Saturday morning about a month ago. They don't work on Sunday. Everything was supposedly cleared up and we would get a letter saying it.

We found out that the window of when they open up a ticket is 48 hours. What happened over the past two years is those idiots called from unlisted numbers, which my wife blocks, and then essentially closed the ticket when no one answered the phone.

Irony was we received another bill threatening action on us even though it's closed.

I'll try the local number search at this point. Just want verbal confirmation of the claim closure

I love to see my tax dollars hard at work!