Fraudulent unemployment claims

The Seattle Times reports:

Washington state officials said Thursday they’re stopping unemployment payments for two days while they attempt to block a gush of fraudulent claims aimed at stealing some of the billions of dollars that Congress directed to workers left jobless amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

Between March and April, the number of fraudulent claims for unemployment benefits jumped 27-fold to 700, the state Employment Security Department (ESD) told The Seattle Times. During that same period, the amount of money bled off by suspected fraudsters jumped from about $40,000 to nearly $1.6 million.

The Employment Security department advises you to go to their website and make a report HERE

The King County Sheriff's Office is seeing the rise in fraud reports related to unemployment claims:

Reports of fraudulent unemployment claims continue to come in at an alarming rate. In the past 24 hours, 135 reports of ID theft have been filed on our online system and that does not include reports forwarded to other agencies.

So here is a reminder: If someone uses your identity to file a fraudulent unemployment claim, and you live in the King County Sheriff's Office jurisdiction or any of our contract cities, make a report online at reporttosheriff.org. Select "Identity Theft" as the crime you are reporting.