Inquiry about Whistle Blowing on Unemployment Fraud - Texas

[StardustBeyond]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Texas

Greetings,

I am currently fully aware of someone who, nearly a year ago, voluntarily quit their job. They began collecting unemployment benefits (not sure how since it was voluntary, without notable cause/excuse, they are perfectly healthy, etc). They verbally admitted to me that they were intentionally applying for jobs that they were under qualified for to avoid having to work, just to meet their 3 job/wk requirements. Their first six months came to a close, and they cried about it enough to get another six months. Approximately 460-480 a week is what they said. (for a full twelve months almost now if someone does not stop them). So in final, on the low end of what they claimed they were receiving, we are looking at a 12 month running fraudulent action in the amount of approximately $23,920.

1) I would be interested in knowing if this would actually be considered fraud?
2) I would like to know if this would actually be investigated if i report.
3) I would like to know what kind of fines / jail time this individual might be looking at if convicted.
4) I would like to know, if i go to all this trouble, what is the likelihood the government will actually take back their money from this criminal?

Additional Information:
They had a nice savings banked away.
They sent their 18 year old child away so that they would not lose any money housing them anymore. (who became homeless for an extensive amount of time)
They immediately sold their home which was fully paid for since before they won it in their divorce 5 years preceding.
They bought a new home and banked a significant amount of what was leftover.
During this time they took private schooling for pastoral certifications in church.
During this time they chose to assist someone they knew with getting a job, the other person had not been employed for 5 years, and had FAR less qualifications than themselves, yet still had a job within 3 weeks, because they actually tried. (that other person was not on unemployment, they just wanted a job)

The overall situation is worse than this, but i felt was necessary to provide that additional information so that you all may understand why i would feel so inclined to blow the whistle as hard as i can on this fraudulent individual.

Thanks, im tired, hopefully i proofread sufficiently, if any questions or concerns, let me know, i will fill in any additional information that i can.

Best Regards,
StardustBeyond

P.S.
In my research i learned about Qui Tam. I am not really concerned about this, but curios if reporting what i described would have any government incentive?
Also... Whomever started this legal advice site and forum was genius, and i want to say thank you. I stumbled upon it tonight from a google search about unemployment laws, and once i got here i couldnt stop reading questions/answers, mostly unrelated to what i was even looking for. I learned alot lol...What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

 

[Proserpina]

By all means, report your suspicions to the nice folk at the unemployment office.


You seem to have an awful lot of knowledge about this mysterious person. Ex of yours?

 

[swalsh411]

First of all, none of your "additional information" is in any way relevant. Even it were all true it would have zero bearing on their eligibility for unemployment.

Secondly, one is not necessarily precluded from benefits because they voluntarily quit their job. They may have had good cause to quit.

Thirdly, nobody "cries enough" to get more weeks of benefits. If you believe that is what happens then your understanding of how eligibility works is flawed.

The only thing that might matter to the unemployment people is if the claimant is not making a good faith effort to find suitable work.

edit: Go ahead and report it. You will not receive any sort of update though as to whether or not it was investigated.

 

[commentator]

"The overall situation is worse than this, but i felt was necessary to provide that additional information so that you all may understand why i would feel so inclined to blow the whistle as hard as i can on this fraudulent individual."

Okay, you haven't done enough research. That's apparent. You have missed the whole point, idealogy and business of the way unemployment insurance operates in this country, state to state, and particularly in your good old homestate of Texas, which has a rather less than generous unemployment system anyhow.

To begin with, unemployment insurance is not needs based, this means that all the details you provided about this person's income including that they had a nice savings banked away are totally irrelevant. The system is not in the least interested in the family's income or financial situation. To qualify for unemployment benefits, the person must have worked for at least six quarters for a covered employer and have made enough wages to set up a claim.

Second, the person cannot just up and decide to quit their nice job and be approved for unemployment benefits on their whim. Each unemployment claim is dealt with individually and is based upon the unemployment laws and statutes. There is an individual decision rendered. You don't think that just because a person decides they want to draw the system gives it to them, do you? A person must be declared to be out of work through no fault of their own, be able and available and actively seeking employment equivalent to what they have had in the past.

From the sound of this, this may be an ex-husband of yours or someone you really hate and are extremely jealous of. But let me assure you, even if you call in and report that the person told you they weren't really sincerely looking for jobs, that doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Because you know what? People will lie against other people just to get them in trouble if they can. Imagine that!

If you called in and reported this person for unemployment fraud, which is an incredibly common happening,( in most cases it is an ex-spouse or next spouse who does the calling) they'd take down your information. They'd thank you. They wouldn't bother to explain to you, as I am here, that all this stuff about the person's income and how they helped someone else get a job when they didn't even get one themselves is totally irrelevent.

They may audit this person's claim. They audit many, and they actually sometimes get the people they chose for audit from the people who have been reported. But what they will never ever do is let you know what happened as a result of your report.

In order to receive benefits, the person must certify each week. The maximum amount that anyone can receive in TX is around $400 a week. This is money that was paid into the general unemployment fund by the employer, to be used when the employees are out of work through no fault of their own. it is NOT your taxpayer dollars being given to deadbeats.

In order to qualify each week, the person is required to submit a list of places they have applied for work. So how, in all this, would you possibly think there was any possibity that the system would be able to judge a claimant's sincerity, whether or not they were applying for jobs they really wanted or were going to get? If the claimant has made the required job searches, and has cooperated with any and all job serach activities offered to him by the employment system, he was deemed eligible to receive this weekly benefit.

Four hundred dollars a week is not much money. If a person is used to being employed and making better wages than this, it is really a pay cut and most people would not enjoy spending 52 weeks hanging out there not working. If the state's regular unemployment claim has ended, the person cannot "cry and whine" enough to be approved for the federal extension that is in place right now. He must qualify according to the state's unemployment criteria.
This criteria has nothing to do with your opinion of the sincerity or diligence of his job search efforts or deserving nature of his situation. Whether or not they bought or sold a home, took some type of schooling, pocketed or banked money from investments... these are not disqualifying. So by reporting this person you haven't done much, haven't accomplished much, and are really unlikely to receive any sort of kudos from your government for reporting waste and fraud. THERE IS NONE GOING ON HERE.

By the way, what is the penalty for true unemployment insurance fraud? Well, it varies considerably. If your claimant was for example, actually working at a full time job and using someone else's social security number and information to draw unemployment benefits fraudulently, this might be considered a serious fraud worthy of prosecution. But we are so far far away from that sort of situation in your scenario that we shouldn't even let you begin to daydream about it. Very few "non fraud" overpayments are ever prosecuted. Even if the person was audited and discovered not to have been eligible for one or two of the weeks for some reason, those weeks would just be declared overpaid, and the person would be asked to pay them back. But don't even dream of it. There's no fraud here, and there is no way they're going to come back after this person and send them to prison just because you wish they would. The system monitors claimants according to the law far too closely for something like this to have gone on as it has if it were really illegal. There is no fraud here. NONE.

Unemployment insurance is just that, insurance against losing one's job through no fault of their own. If this person managed to do this, and managed to convince the unemployment system of their eligibility, then mighty likely, they were eligible, and as long as they have fulfilled the criteria necessary to remain eligible, then they are going to remain eligible until they have drawn out all there is for them to get. Then it ends, no matter how much the person needs it or how much they cry, whine or scream. That you feel this person should not have been given unemployment insurance, should instead should be hung up by their thumbs, drawn and quartered (and made to give the profits from the house back to you and take the 18 year old homeless child back in and support them) does not matter. This is not unemployment fraud, this is your desire to punish someone for something entirely unrelated.

 

[StardustBeyond]

Thank you for your information.

@ Proserpina - No, i am actually the aforementioned offspring.

@ swalsh411 - Good to know. I assumed the additional info would have no weight, but i just feel like people will think badly of me for doing this, so i want it to be known why i would go out of my way to report it. And as i mentioned there was not a justifiable cause unless it was something forged in some sort of way.

Thirdly, nobody "cries enough" to get more weeks of benefits. If you believe that is what happens then your understanding of how eligibility works is flawed.

On that note, i was concerned about saying things that way. No i do not know what it takes to get the benefits extended, but they made it sound like how i described. Though fully aware and openly having openly spoken about the fraud, they would pray with tears that the government would have compassion on them. That is the only reason i said it that way. Sorry for the confusion. From what you said it sounds like it will be almost a waste of my time to try to bring this to their attention, they must not mind losing money through fraudulent claims.

Regards,
StardustBeyond

 

[StardustBeyond]

Not quite the attitude i expected from an advice forum i must say. Thanks for the information though. It is definitely clear that the governing parties do not have any concern about having any restitution for people who cheat the system.

Forgot to mention, they only ever went to 1 interview, and they were offered the job paying about 40k/yr, and declined it.

Again, i mentioned clearly that they quit their job voluntarily, however they were very good friends with their superiors, so maybe they worked something out in a sneaky fashion.

*shrug* I definitely am frustrated because of what they put me through during the past 2 years. Again, thanks for the information...

 

[cbg]

As indicated, if you are convinced that there is fraud involved, you are free to report it. However, even if fraud is discovered, the state will not tell you about it.

 

[Eekamouse]

Their 18 year old child is legally an adult and needs to quit expecting his/her parent to house them for free. This 18 year old adult needs to mind his/her own business and focus on themselves instead, imo.

 

[Beth3]

Extensions of unemployment aren't granted because a claimant whines; they're granted if an extension had been approved by the legislature and funded by the State or federal government. There's no means by which a claimant can "whine" his or her way into an extension.

I don't see any UC fraud here - just someone milking the system by applying for jobs he's unlikely to get. The end result will be that when unemployment benefits do run out, the claimant won't have a job nor any propsects of having a job. That's going to be his problem.

Not one item in the additional information you provided is at all relevant. Nothing in the law prohibits a claimant from collecting UC benefits if he or she has savings in the bank - in fact they'll need those savings to live on because unemployment doesn't pay much.

You clearly have an axe to grind (and perhaps a legitimate one) but this isn't the way to go about it, particuarly since the claimant hasn't committed UC fraud.

 

[commentator]

The person who quit the job must have been a really good friend of the employer who laid him off, because his drawing unemployment benefits was funded by that employer, and cost the employer money. But if the employer agreed to it, that was what it took to get it to happen. Maybe he just wanted rid of this particular employee and was willing to foot the bill for his unemployment to get rid of him. Either way, it was legal.

But now, no matter how much the person cries and prays, they are just about out of unemployment benefits. There was no fraud (except in the heart of the claimant who was not making a sincere job search, maybe even bragging about not making a sincere job search) and no laws were broken, though he may have been lying and cheating the system in his own way.

How appropriate that this person is studying for the ministry! Ick!
As I said, the system cannot discern the sincerity of the person who has submitted the information. If he was offered a job and refused it, it may have been fraud if he did not inform the system and have a decision made about whether or not it was an equivalent job. That would be where fraud might come in. When I called to report him, I'd mention this job specifically, and let them have the information that he refused the job, let them check on whether or not it was reported. That might be something that would be looked at.

As to their not minding losing money on fraudulent claims, believe me, the system is set up in certain ways ( and it is a huge system) to try to keep people from committing fraud. But as we keep pointing out, what you are describing is not fraud. It is perhaps someone milking the system, but it isn't a career path, it isn't a permanent option, and it is about to end for this person real soon. And no matter what, you have to remember that NEED is not the reason a person gets signed up on unemployment insurance, even if they may want to, and no one in the system cares whether they could refuse the money or not. They are not asked to refuse it if they don't need it. It is there for them if they qualify. Sort of like Social Security retirement. Nobody says, "I'll not take my Social Security retirement, cause I have other money in the bank and don't need it!" It's not fraud.

As to what you expected on an advice forum, we have most of us here worked with unemployment insurance and human resources for many years. When you ask a question and you are way off base, don't expect us to not tell you the facts just because they are not what you want to hear. Call and report that daddy refused a job. Have the specifics of the job, when, where and everything he told you. That will be investigated, though you may never hear the result of it, it actually might trigger Daddy having to come in and explain why he refused the job.