Contacted by UIA

[michydarlyn21]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Michigan
I live in Michigan, I got unemployed in September of 2010 and applied for benefits, I called in the first time but didnt get a payment, called a second time but got nothing either so I stopped calling. Got a job with 10hrs a week but quit because the hrs were not enough. I eventually received a payment in December after I had gotten a full time job. I made a mistake and continued collecting benefits and not reporting since December. I got a call today asking me to verify my previous employments, they asked me to explain my situation. I'm a student paying my tuition out of pocket. I completely cooperated and offered to payback. The lady said they will send me some paperwork to fill out and a decision will be made. My question is, will I face jail time? I have never been and im scared, I know i made a mistake and i'm willing to get a payment arrangement.

 

[swalsh411]

Jail time is unlikely if you actually pay it back. The sooner the better but don't lie and say you can pay more than you really can afford to pay.

Not enough hours is not a sufficient reason to quit a job in the eyes of the unemployment system. You might be required to pay back everything, not just what you were paid because of your outright fraud. (which is exactly what it is)

 

[commentator]

You will get an overpayment decision soon in the mail. They will figure out exactly how much your overpayment is, and then calculate any penalties or sanctions you may owe in addition to this amount.

From the sound of this, you dropped the ball on your filing for unemployment insurance from the beginning, and it was all thoroughly deliberate on your part, so do not attempt to insult anyone's intelligence by telling them you "didn't understand" or quit calling only because you didn't get a check.

You understood perfectly well that you wouldn't get a check after the first and second call for quite a while. It is part of the general patter that you don't hear quickly from the system and that your first week is a waiting week. You could have found out all that from the website. Even though you weren't working later, and then got a job for only 10 hours a week, that doesn't mean you saved up your unemployment that you should have been getting. If you did not make a weekly certification with the unemployment system for those weeks, you would not be entitled to them, whether you were working or not.

You got paid for the week(s) you had certified for in December, that isn't too hard to believe or too long to have waited for the payments to get started. At that point, you somehow had to get your claim re opened, your checks started again after a break, which means you re-opened your claim and flat out "forgot" to mention you were working, and have continued to apply for money you were ineligible for since then.

Don't call it a mistake or an accident or claim you just didn't understand while dealing with the fraud and overpayment unit if you want them to continue to work with you and allow you to repay this without severe sanctions. And don't try to justify yourself because you're a student paying your way through school (or a single mom, or a sole support of your aged parents or anything else that makes you special)

That you're a student just means you're working on higher education, and should be smart enough to have understood exactly what the unemployment system was telling you, therefore you have less excuse than many people for having committed fraud. You did it because you thought you could get away with it, which was actually extremely stupid, as all employers wage records cross match with unemployment records.

However, since you are currently working, and have income coming in, you need to try very hard to get an overpayment program set up right away.
While dealing with them, when setting up your overpayment plan, do not over-estimate your ability to repay this money, do not say you'll pay a great deal each week and then default. It's much better to set your repayment plan reasonably and then stick to it. That way they won't be tempted to prosecute you or give you additional sanctions.

Will you go to jail? Highly unlikely.

 

[michydarlyn21]

Thank you for the replies... Do I wait for the paperwork to arrive in the mail or do I call back and set up payment arrangements.

 

[commentator]

Wait for them for a few weeks, at least one or two. They'll get to you eventually, inevitably. If you were to not hear from them within say, three or four weeks, I'd call the number of the U.I. fraud division. But you cannot start paying it back until you get the decision on how much you actually owe.There's a huge push, suddenly, this week, on collecting unemployment fraud money. So resolve this quickly, before it gets to be the "issue of the month" and the federal government steps in and ups the penalities that the states have to impose on offenders. I can see it coming down the line, you do not want to be out there not paid up when it happens.