Ex Felons For Hire

United States:

New York City Expands Protections Under Its Ban The Box Law For Applicants And Employees

06 April 2021

Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP

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Yale Daily News

The Justice Impact Movement and the Yale College Council are calling on Yale admissions to ban questions about an applicant’s criminal record, in a new report and through a meeting with Yale admissions officials.

JIM is an initiative associated with the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project that focuses on eliminating barriers to education for formerly incarcerated people. Over the past month, JIM collaborated with the YCC to issue a report recommending that Yale “ban the box” — meaning that they remove questions about criminal record — from the Yale College application. Ban the Box is a national campaign which seeks to reduce the collection of criminal justice information in applications for jobs and universities by removing the “box” that formerly-incarcerated people must check to indicate that they have been convicted of a crime.

“Education is crucial for the successful reintegration of formerly incarcerated people into society, which benefits justice-impacted people themselves as well as their families and communities,” the JIM and YCC report read. “Specifically, we believe institutions of higher learning should not discriminate against otherwise qualified candidates for admission solely based on prior interaction with the justice system.”

On March 30, members of the YCC and JIM met with representatives from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions to advocate for the removal of an inquiry on Yale’s application into applicants’ disciplinary histories. According to Grace Freedman ’24, JIM founder and executive director, the meeting was “really productive” and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions plans to revisit the topic later in the semester.

Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Jeremiah Quinlan confirmed to the News that the meeting occurred but declined to comment further on the matter.

During the 2019-2020 admissions cycle, the Common Application permanently removed its criminal history question. However, Yale still includes a criminal history question in the Yale-specific section of the Common Application. The question asks applicants, “Have you ever been convicted of, or pled guilty or no contest to, a misdemeanor or felony, or are there any criminal charges pending against you?”

“The very collection of criminal justice information has a chilling effect on prospective students who believe that Yale will not admit them because of their previous interactions with the justice system,” said YCC Vice-President Reilly Johnson ’22.

Johnson has overseen the YCC’s engagement with JIM on this initiative, establishing a task force composed of YCC Senators and JIM members. Task force members drafted the comprehensive report, which provides background on the issue and formally asks Yale Undergraduate Admissions to “ease the collection and usage of criminal justice information.”

According to Johnson, the report also presents secondary recommendations in case the task force’s demand that the Office of Undergraduate Admissions “ban the box” entirely is unsuccessful. These include collecting criminal justice information only after students have accepted their offers of admission, limiting inquiries about criminal history to specific offenses like stalking or sexual assault and “re-evaluating how and in what contexts criminal justice information is used.”

Melat Eskender ’24, a Morse College senator and member of the task force, emphasized the racially disproportionate effect of the collection of criminal justice information.

“This issue is important to me because, as a Black woman, I know intimately how my community is overpoliced and disproportionately incarcerated,” Eskender said. “Racial inequality is so pervasive in the criminal justice system that it is impossible for the inquiry and usage of criminal justice information in college applications to be a race-neutral practice.”

According to Eskender, the Office of Admissions seemed open to adopting the policies of institutions like New York University, which does not include criminal justice information in their first reading of undergraduate applications.

Eskender also noted that the task force cares “immensely” about campus safety. She noted that the only study conducted on the relationship between criminal record screening and campus safety did not find a statistical difference in the rate of campus crime between institutions that did or did not collect criminal justice information. The study, a 2015 report from the Center for Community Alternatives, found that crimes committed on college campuses are more often committed by students without prior criminal records.

“There is no reason that formerly incarcerated or justice-impacted individuals should be discouraged from receiving a degree,” said Zoe Hsu ’24, the YCC equity chair. “Five states and 50 universities have already banned the box; Yale should follow suit.”

Universities that have banned the box include the University of California system and the State University of New York system.

Although JIM and the YCC’s report was Yale-specific, JIM is also pursuing more general ways to ban the box in higher education. Freedman has authored and proposed “H.B. 6228: Ban the Box in Higher Education,” a bill in the Connecticut State Legislature that prohibits higher education institutions from using information about criminal history in admissions and financial aid decisions.

Should H.B. 6228 pass and become law, it would force Yale and other Connecticut institutions to ban the box in admissions. However, Freedman hopes that Yale will choose to do so regardless.

“Hopefully, we will have legislation that passes and that will be implemented the following year,” Freedman said. “But we’re trying to make it so that Yale can lead on this before they are just pushed legally to do it — they could actually stand up and lead in this fight for increasing access to higher education.”

The Connecticut Legislative Session will last until June 9.

Amelia Davidson | amelia.davidson@yale.edu

Lucy Hodgman | lucy.hodgman@yale.edu 

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CHICAGO (CBS) — As the COVID-19 pandemic raged across Illinois in 2020, record numbers of residents were losing jobs and filing for unemployment. Meantime, scams targeting this massive pool of new job seekers also surged.

Hundreds across Illinois have lost money to these scams. In 2019, according to the FBI, 388 job seekers in Illinois were scammed out of $631,000. In 2020, during the deadliest health and economic crises in decades, the numbers jumped to 533, and scammers hit the innocent for a whooping $1.68 million.

READ MORE: 4-Year-Old Boy Was Killed In Bishop Ford Freeway Crash Involving IDOT Truck This Week

CBS 2’s Dorothy Tucker will be reporting on this issue Monday at 10 p.m. and found the one safeguard that is supposed to protect victims isn’t working. She spoke with several people who were targeted in the scams.

Since early 2019, victims have reported numerous examples of this scam to the FBI. The average reported loss natioanlly was nearly $3,000 per victim, in addition to damage to the victims’ credit scores. Consumers have reported to the FTC that they lost more than $610 million to these scams since 2016, with reported losses of more than $150 million in the first nine months of 2020.

Overall, employment scams of all types–not just job-seeking schemes–increased from about 14,500 victims nationwide to nearly 17,000 in 2020, according to the FBI’s 2020 Internet Crime Report. The victims losses also surged from $46.6 million to $62.3 million.

Fake job or hiring scams occur when criminals deceive victims into believing they have a job or a potential job. Criminals leverage their position as bogus employers to persuade victims to provide them with personal information or to send them money.

READ MORE: Person Shot And Killed By Police In Little Village Identified As 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo

Cyber criminals now pose as legitimate employers by spoofing company websites and posting fake job openings on popular online job boards, according to the FBI. They conduct false interviews with unsuspecting applicant victims, then request personal ID information or money. With the personal data, scammers can taking over the victims’ accounts, opening new financial accounts, or using the victims’ identity to obtain fake driver’s licenses or passports.

Criminals first spoof a legitimate company’s website by creating a domain name similar in appearance to a legitimate company. Then they post fake job openings on popular job boards that direct applicants to the spoofed sites. Applicants can apply on the spoofed company websites or directly on the job boards. Applicants are contacted by email to conduct a remote interview.

After being interviewed by cyber criminals, victims are offered jobs, usually in a work-at-home capacity. In order to appear legitimate, the criminals send victims an employment contract to physically sign, and also request a copy of the victims’ driver’s licenses, Social Security numbers, direct deposit information, and credit card information. Criminals may also tell victims they need to pay upfront for background checks or screenings, job training, start-up equipment, or supplies. In many cases, victims are told they will be reimbursed in their first paycheck. Once they get money, criminals stop communicating with their victims.

What should raise red flags for job seekers?

• Interviews are not conducted in-person or through a secure video call.
• Interviews are conducted via applications that use email addresses instead of phone numbers.
• Potential employers contact victims through non-company email domains and teleconference applications.
• Potential employers require employees to purchase start-up equipment from the company.
• Potential employers request credit card information.
• Job postings appear on job boards, but not on the companies’ websites.
• Recruiters or managers do not have profiles on the job board, or the profiles do not seem to fit their roles.

What can people do to protect themselves?

MORE NEWS: Jerome Fogle Sr. Charged With Firing Rifle Inside Gary Truck Stop; No One Was Injured

• Conduct a web search of the hiring company using the company name only.
• Legitimate companies will ask for PII and bank account information for payroll purposes AFTER hiring employees.
• Never send money to someone you meet online, especially by wire transfer.
• Never provide credit card information to an employer.
• Never provide bank account information to employers without verifying their identity.

Victims of a hiring scam, can file a report to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

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There is nothing more enjoyable than getting immersed in a good movie or TV show after a long day of hard work. And while everyone knows how fun it can be to become lost in a good fictional story, one of the most underrated and entertaining elements of enjoying these works is daydreaming about cool jobs and professions that its characters occupy.

RELATED: 13 Coolest Sci-Fi Movie Jobs Of All Time

In fact, one of the reasons for this is the sheer contrast that these fantastic (and sometimes terrible) fictional jobs offering an irresistible way of escape reality. Therefore, it’s no wonder many Redditors already took to asking and answering the question of what everyone’s favorite fictional dream jobs would be. And with some answers being too fun to pass up, there are just a few that needed to be shared with the world.

10 Dream Extractor (Inception)

A Reddit user (who has since deleted their account), took this question a bit too literally, providing what is easily one of the best and wittiest answers on this list. For them, the best “dream job” would be “a professional dream thief like in Inception.” However, many would agree that this 2010 blockbuster profession can have a few moral implications (since the dream thief essentially means sneaking into other people’s dreams and tricking the person into unintentionally giving up their secrets).

But could some argue that there are ways a “dream extractor” could be used for positive means? It’s possible. Psychologists and other mental health specialists might use the “extractor” as a therapeutic technique to help people with their problems. Some may also argue that they will prefer to be “an architect of dreams” and help the subjects achieve what they have always imagined.

9 Looper Assassin (Looper)

Redditor u/DA3DALUSxGAMER says: “Call me crazy, but I would totally be down with becoming a Looper Assassin. I understand the consequences, but just imagine the cash!”

Sure, being a hardcore hitman who is trained to kill time-traveling victims might sound exciting to some people, especially since payment comes in silver and golden bars. However, this morally questionable career comes with a price, which means that after 30 years of luxurious life, the looper will share the same destiny as his anonymous victims. No wonder this job is not among the popular ones on Reddit since only a few people would be comfortable with the consequences of “closing a loop” (or even kiling).

8 Toy Tester (Big)

The idea for this one came from u/paper_swan, who suggests that becoming a Toy Tester in the movie Big is a way more interesting and glamorous profession. Not only would testing every kind of cool toy imaginable be an amazing job for anyone in the real world, but it was also the dream job of the movie’s protagonist Josh (Tom Hanks), whose massive paycheck allowed him to move to his own place, full of toys, including his own pinball machine.

7 Gardener In Hobbiton (The Lord Of The Ring)

For many individuals, a quiet and peaceful job in nature is where it’s at. However, Reddit u/armypantsnflipflops took that notion to a whole new level when they suggested their dream job would be “Gardener, in Hobbiton. Living that peaceful life.” In Tolkien’s works, this is indeed described as a real (and rather noble) family profession, carried over from generation to generation by “The Gardeners of the Hill” – descendants of Samwise Gamgee and Rose Cotton.

RELATED: Harry Potter: Wizarding World Careers Lord of the Rings Characters Would Excel In

Even Tolkien himself was very fond of the profession, describing himself in his letter as a Hobbit due to his love of nature, gardening, trees, and of course, pipes. In fact, he also considered gardening to be a highly noble profession too. So if it’s good enough for Tolkien, it’s good enough for anyone else.

6 Any Job From Jurassic Park

According to u/specialtomebabe, “pretty much every job on Jurassic Park,” would qualify as a dream job. Just imagine being hired by John Hammond and given the freedom to design the park however you want.

There are, in fact, several jobs one can occupy in Jurassic Park, including Chaotician, Geneticist, Paleobotanist, and Paleontologist. Working with animals day in and day out is already cool enough, but imagine working in a prehistoric environment with literal dinosaurs roaming around.

5 Hogwarts Professor (Harry Potter)

Here’s one most Potterheads will definitely agree on. There’s no better job than being a Hogwarts professor. According to u/ mightyandpowerful, their reasoning is that “you get free room and board AND no one seems to care whether you’re actually a good teacher or not.”

RELATED: Harry Potter: The Professors, Ranked By Likability

The best part is that this profession can accommodate almost any personality and talent given the scope of different and unique teaching positions at Hogwarts. For example, Reddit user PrincessPuglet dreams of being “Care of Magical Creatures professor at Hogwarts. Once Hagrid retires, of course.”

4 Auror (Harry Potter)

Given how popular the professions from the Harry Potter world are among Redditors, one more dream job is in order. This one comes from u/asianfromthecongo, who would love to be “an Auror from the Harry Potter series.” For those unfamiliar with this fictional profession, an Auror is basically a detective or law-enforcement-official appointed by the Ministry of Magic, on the hunt for magical criminals. The training for an Auror is extremely extensive and exhaustive, meaning only the best wizards can qualify for the position.

Yet, despite all the dangers and challenges that this job would bring, it’s easy to see why it would be a popular choice. After all, it’s the profession Harry himself chose after the events of the books and so did his best pal Ron.

3 Ghostbuster (Ghostbusters)

This dream job idea comes from Reddit user Bazoodle who was “extremely surprised no one else has said this.” And while being a Ghostbuster definitely qualifies as cool, it’s probably not everyone’s dream job for a good reason. As another Reddit user named kjata replies, “Not a whole lot of people willing to strap particle accelerators to their backs every day.”

It’s worth noting that anyone brave enough to put on the uniform and grab those ghost vacuums should be prepared for some scary paranormal encounters as well as getting slimed on a daily basis.

2 MiB Agent (Men In Black)

Speaking of paranormal, what’s cooler than working for a top-secret organization monitoring and hiding extraterrestrial life on Earth? The idea for this dream job came from u/Kapadia1995A, who chose the 1997 blockbuster Men in Black because “it’s like being a cop but the victims and perpetrators are mostly aliens.”

The sheer number of different aliens and creative tactics they use to hide their existence on this planet, such as all postmen being aliens or taking the form of talking pugs, is astonishing. Add to that time and space travel and the adventure never ends.

1 The Doctor’s Companion (Doctor Who)

While on the topic of time and space travel, there’s one TV franchise that takes that notion to a far greater extreme than any other – Doctor Who. For Reddit user ljahb, being the Doctor’s companion would be a dream job. And while there’s a lot of merit to this answer, it’s probably better described as a dream side gig, given how most of the Doctor’s companions kept their day jobs and only traveled with him in their free time. For example, Clara kept teaching, Amy modeled, and Rory continued nursing. Plus, who wouldn’t want to spend time exploring the entire universe in their spare time.

NEXT: The Big Bang Theory: Which Character Has The Best Paid Job, Ranked?

About The Author

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“So pervasive is the racial inequality in the criminal justice system, it is impossible for the inquiry and usage of criminal justice information in college applications to be a race-neutral practice” states a joint report from the Justice Impact Movement, also known as JIM, and Yale College Council. People with a history of system involvement are three times less likely to finish a college application after starting than those without, all because of a single question asking about their past. Most of these prospective students belong to nonwhite minorities, feeding the issue of skewed demographics in higher education. JIM, a subgroup within the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project, encourages institutions of higher education to “ban the box” and promote a fairer system in the U.S. We want to break down the barriers to higher education for justice-impacted individuals. Such change starts with a new bill in the Connecticut General Assembly.

H.B. 6228, a Senate bill referred to the Committee on Higher Education and Employment Advancement, prohibits higher education institutions from using criminal justice history in admissions and financial aid decisions and establishes a state-wide Prison Education Program Office to help run programs within Connecticut prisons. The Program Office would help incarcerated scholars with re-entry and financial aid while also developing a process by which such students may field complaints about any of the university-led education programs. Yale students are likely familiar with YUPP, which fights inequities in the criminal justice system through education programs and organized activism; this new bill works towards similar goals, pushing to end discrimination in higher education and provide opportunities to those who are justice-impacted.

The criminal “justice” system in America disproportionately affects minority communities, and the struggles that follow incarceration — including barring from jobs and higher education — turn even the shortest sentences into lifetime ones. In the United States, the incarceration rates for African Americans are more than five times higher than that of white Americans, and almost 75 percent of those who reenter society are unable to find a job within the following year. A Black man our age, 18 to 19 years old, is nearly 12 times more likely to be incarcerated right now than his white peer.

Knowledge is power, and an education can help those who have lost years of their lives to an unfair system build a more stable future. Higher education is among the best ways to improve quality of life for justice-impacted individuals. Those without feasible opportunity are more likely to reenter the system later on. When institutions, companies and governments exclude justice-impacted individuals from educational and monetary opportunities, they inherently reinforce racism and heighten the chances of recidivism. 

The reasoning behind criminal history questions on school applications is widely unknown, although many institutions state “campus safety” as the primary concern. However, reports show that campus crimes are actually more likely to be committed by students who are not justice-impacted. Furthermore, schools that have already banned the box have seen no significant change in crime rates, and the related application questions are often far too broad to be relevant to such concerns. More than 50 schools, along with the state of Louisiana and the organization that manages the Common App, have removed criminal history questions from their applications, yet none in the Ivy League have. Universities like ours ought to be places where people can learn and grow, regardless of the path they took to get here. 

JIM, founded under the National Justice Impact Bar Association, pushes to end discrimination in higher education, and after discussions with Yale’s College Council about “banning the box” in Yale admissions, we decided to push our agenda statewide. We recognize that racial equity is closely intertwined with educational opportunity, and to continue the fight for social justice in America, minority communities must be allowed to gain an education. By asking students about their criminal history, Connecticut universities both discourage and discriminate against those who might benefit most from an education. The new bill in the Connecticut General Assembly could be life-changing for thousands of justice-impacted individuals. Banning the box on college applications and establishing a Prison Education Program Office would make getting a degree much more accessible to currently and formerly incarcerated people. This is an important opportunity for universities to reckon with the effects of a racialized criminal justice system and do their part in making the American education system more equitable. We can start with H.B. 6228.

ELIZABETH CORDOVA is a sophomore in Grace Hopper College. Contact her at elizabeth.cordova@yale.edu.

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Thousands of workers across New York are finding something in their mailboxes that is freaking them out — a letter from the state that says they qualify for unemployment insurance. Sometimes, it comes with a debit card full of money.

But the people have jobs. They haven’t applied for unemployment.

It’s fraud. And it’s rampant across New York and other states that suddenly started taking in millions of unemployment claims on outdated computer systems during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Syracuse City School District said last summer that phony claims had been filed on behalf of more than 150 employees who were still working.

Onondaga County’s human resources department has handled about 100 complaints. Syracuse City Hall has dealt with about 50 stolen identities.

The same has happened in utility companies, private businesses and college campuses.

Syracuse University saw an increase in fraudulent claims in February. The university has hired an identity protection service for employees that comes with dark web monitoring and $1 million of identity theft insurance.

Sophisticated organized crime outfits in places like Nigeria, Russia and China — and more amateur operations in the U.S. — have seized the Covid recession as an opportunity.

They’ve taken information seized in data breaches to exploit inadequate state computer systems and overwhelmed agencies to steal billions of dollars and alarm Americans.

Leslie Carbo, director of cybersecurity programs at Utica College, is getting calls from friends who want to know what’s going on.

Carbo tells them to call the state labor department and to freeze their credit.

Whatever you do, she said, do not respond to an email from someone who says you need to pay the money back immediately or you’ll be arrested. That’s someone trying to get your bank account routing number.

“I’ve seen and read so much about this kind of stuff that, hey, it’s my job to make other people paranoid, too,” she said. “I want them to understand. All of our information is out there.”

Like other states, New York state suddenly started processing hundreds of thousands of new claims last March with no time to boost its security systems.

Criminals went state by state, armed with millions of identities stolen from previous data breaches. It only takes a few pieces of information to successfully apply for unemployment insurance.

New York state officials say they have caught 521,000 fraudulent claims, avoiding $6.4 billion in losses.

That is often with the help of victims and human resources offices. The department won’t say how much money got away.

By the federal government’s own estimate, about 10% — or $36 billion of the $360 billion in the CARES Act could be paid improperly, according to a report to Congress.

Experts estimate state unemployment systems across the country have lost more than $100 billion in one year. Some put the number closer to $200 billion.

“The numbers are staggering,” said Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “It’s bigger than Enron.”

And it’s only going to get bigger, he said, until states catch up.

How it’s caught

Victims and employers can easily catch many of these fraudulent claims.

That’s because, in some cases, paperwork and even debit cards are mailed directly to the victim or the employer. Someone who is still employed gets a surprise debit card or a letter from the state that estimates the amount they can claim. Sometimes, victims get tax forms in the mail, saying they owe income taxes on unemployment benefits.

Criminals target people with jobs because they don’t already have claims in the unemployment system.

Those cases are reported to the labor department and are often stopped before money is lost.

Those kinds of easy catches can be attributed to mistakes made by criminals who are filing so many millions of fraudulent cases, they sometimes forget to reroute the mail.

Fraudsters recently impersonated Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, First Lady Fran DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.

Erie County District Attorney John Flynn got scammed earlier this month.

“If someone tried to use my name, everybody’s at risk,” he told The Buffalo News.

When the criminals strike out, they simply move on to another name.

“Fraudsters, by definition, are lazy,” said Armen Najarian, chief marketing officer at RSA Fraud and Risk Intelligence. “They’re going after volume. … It’s as many as they can, as fast as they can.”

Here’s how it works when it works

Organized criminal operations, mostly overseas, buy datasets on the dark web that contain millions of Americans’ names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers. These lists have been stolen in previous data breaches at big retailers, banks and health insurance companies. They can be purchased with Bitcoin.

“There’s a whole underground economy for identity assembly,” Najarian said.

Next, criminals can buy a step-by-step playbook that explains how to file a fraudulent claim in each state. Najarian’s firm has a collection of them.

Fraudsters file a claim in the name of a real person at their real address. Then, they quickly change the address.

Most states give clients a choice to direct deposit the money in a bank account or put it on a debit card. If they choose a bank account, fraudsters bounce the money to various accounts until they have access.

If they choose a debit card, there is another economy of “mules” who help launder cards to cash and move it offshore. The U.S. Postal Service has a public service message advising “Don’t be a mule.”

There have been few prosecutions of overseas criminals associated with unemployment fraud.

But the federal government has gone after suspected mules in this country. In the last two months of 2020, the feds took action against 2,300 money mules, compared to 600 the year before.

There have also been arrests that involved homegrown American schemes to defraud the unemployment system.

Two California men have been accused of creating fake companies to file 72 unemployment claims, paying out $609,000. They used real names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers and had debit cards sent to addresses they controlled.

In January, three people in Michigan were accused of filing dozens of claims in several states. Two of them used their own names, or versions of their own names, with other people’s Social Security numbers. The third person had debit cards mailed to various addresses and spent the day repeatedly withdrawing high dollar amounts from ATMs.

People have also been busted after filing claims in the names of inmates in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The federal government charged Elvin German, of the Bronx, this month in a scheme that involved the loss of more than $1.4 million from the New York labor department. He is accused of using the identities of more than 250 victims to file false claims.

He gave himself away by using the same IP address and the same security question and answer — the name of the family dog, Benji, investigators said.

When they searched his home, investigators found a computer loaded to the unemployment benefits page with the identifying information of four victims open in another computer file, authorities said. They also found a dog wearing a collar inscribed with the name “Benji.”

Corbo, in Utica, said she has heard of a more aggressive scheme:

Fraudsters apply for unemployment benefits and the debit card is sent to the person they impostered. Then, the fraudsters call, posing as the state or federal government, and demand that the victim pay the money back. These victims know they’ve done something wrong and they may be eager to get out of trouble. The victims are asked to go online and fill out a fraudulent form, signing away their savings.

“People are typing in their Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and verifying to the criminal. Then, the criminal goes and removes the money,” Corbo said.

States were not prepared

Why were the states so vulnerable to attack?

Unemployment programs have historically had some of the highest improper payment rates of all federal government programs, the U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General Office reported to Congress last fall.

One of the federal government’s new pandemic programs was especially vulnerable, they said.

For the first time, the federal government allowed self-contractors to get help under the new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

It allowed gig workers — artists, freelancers and Uber drivers — to apply without first proving they made wages. That opened the door for fraudsters to file claims by simply swearing that they were unemployed for Covid-related reasons and they had worked until that point.

For victims who work for themselves, there is no human resources department to catch phony claims.

If someone files a fraudulent claim in their name, and gets away with it, those workers are the least likely to discover it. And they are the most likely to have a hard time fixing the situation and tapping into benefits if they actually become unemployed.

There can be a long delay when they try to file a legitimate claim because there is already one on file in their name.

In February, the state labor department said it had hired a company called ID.me to help verify identities. Now, applicants will get an email or text message asking them to set up multi-factor authentication. They’ll be asked to upload a photo of a driver’s license or passport and take a selfie.

Other states, like Ohio, are hiring data collection services like LexisNexis to verify claims.

Talcove said states are starting to catch up to the methods banks and other private companies have used for a long time.

“Although the people that are doing it are very sophisticated,” he said. “The fraud really is easy to stop.”

What to do if it happens to you

Don’t panic. Don’t send confidential information to unknown websites or email addresses, or to a voice on the phone.

If you get a letter or a debit card that says you have qualified for unemployment when you have not filed a claim, report it to the New York State Department of Labor.

Report it to your employer.

Change your passwords, logins and pins for online accounts.

Put a fraud alert on your accounts with credit bureaus Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Get a free credit report from report.com.

Report the identity theft to the Federal Trade Commission at identitytheft.gov.

If you get a 1099-G tax form for income you did not receive, the IRS says you should contact the state and request a corrected 1099-G. Do not pay taxes on income you did not receive.

Some companies that have had data breaches offer credit monitoring services to customers. That includes Equifax and Marriott’s Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

Read more:

NY has short delay in getting extra $300 unemployment benefit to some

Unemployment in NY: How to figure out if you need to reapply after one year

3rd stimulus check update: IRS updates Get My Payment tool; see when you’ll get paid

Inside CNY’s job disaster: What industries fell off a cliff?

Have you been a victim of unemployment fraud? If you want to tell your story, contact Michelle Breidenbach | mbreidenbach@syracuse.com | 315-470-3186.

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