What is happening to you is a Benefit Accuracy Measurement audit as required by the state and federal unemployment laws. These audits are performed on a certain random percentage of claims and employer tax records each quarter. All this auditor will be looking for is a meeting with you where you undergo a very cursory review of your claim. They would prefer not to discover anything messy or complicated.
They would strongly prefer that you come up with some sort of record of where you have made basic work searches, done some contacts, approximate dates when you have filed applications. What they don't want to hear about is your health issues, mental or physical, your inability to do this work search, (although you were quite able to file for weeks of benefits) and how insulted you are as an American tax payer and a genuinely deserving person that you have been audited.
Do you honestly believe that every other random person they do this quality audit on has great records with daily, weekly and monthly records of where and how they have looked for a job? Since your state does not require that you document every single job search and fill out a log for submission each week, they get very approximate job search records from everyone they look at, you can bet on it.
If you are not willing to come up with something showing work searches you've made, even without documented proof, then can all that extraneous argument about your health, (you were able to get organized enough each week to certify during this period that you were ABLE, available and actively seeking work) your rights as a taxpayer (you did not pay unemployment into the system for yourself) and your serious need for the money as you were unable to work because you were.....something.
This auditor will have heard that "this is the first time I've ever asked for ... blah blah blah" so many times it is sickening. Making this statement is due to your lack of understanding of the system, which is there for you because you qualify, and not based on how much you need it. If your integrity is such that you don't want to come up with any kind of approximate job search record, you're welcome to just tell them you weren't really eligible that you committed fraud, and that you want to pay the money back. Your indignation about the fickle finger of fate which has caught you out in your particular personal situation will not make any difference to this auditor.
Just meet with them, present what records you can comfortably come up with, with approximations and guesstimations about dates and places. Do not provide too much extraneous information, do not volunteer anything you are not asked about. They may tell you your job searches are insufficient, and that in the future you need to do better and make them much more detailed. But they probably will not call a complete foul and report you to the fraud unit for overpayment charges unless you spill the beans about your really iffy situation since you began your claim in October of last year.
Whatever you do, do not show attitude or start arguing unemployment law with the auditor. That is absolutely the biggest tip off that a person is trying to commit fraud or hide something.
) once said that excuses are like rectums. Everbody has one.