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.
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.