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Unemployment Overpayment

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Beoden

New member
What is the name of your state? Ohio

I filed for unemployment after I was laid off in April. I had a severance with the company I worked for and disclosed that in my initial filing. Unemployment office asked for more information so I scanned and sent them my entire signed severance agreement. I contacted ODJFS to make sure they had all the paperwork and information they needed and was told by the rep that everything looked good and to continue filing weekly while my determination was being processed. So I did. My UI was allowed on 4/25/2019 and they began depositing payments into an account. Apparently the original UI decision stated that I was not eligible for payments during the time period of my severance, I didn't notice this, but they began payments anyways. Almost 3 months later, on 7/17/2019 I get a notice of re determination stating that due to a "typographical or clerical error" (non-fraud) I was overpaid and now owe $2015.00 and they will be offsetting my entire unemployment and possibly sending this to collection if not paid back.

I contacted the office again because this was my only source of income and was told to file an appeal and it would stop the offset while the appeal was being decided. This was another piece of negligence and incompetence of ODJFS because it didn't stop the off payments. My appeal was denied. I was looking online and couldn't find anything on Ohio's unemployment website about waivers for overpayments and if they are possible in Ohio. I found on the Dept. of Labor's website a state by state listing of when a waiver can be issued and Ohio states that when it is a "Agency Error" a waiver can be issued for overpayments caused by no fault of the claimant. The person I asked from the Office of Unemployment didn't even know what I was talking about and after having me on hold for 10+ minutes said it would handled in the appeal.

I was hoping someone on here might know if a waiver is possible in Ohio since I can't get a direct answer from anyone that is supposed to give that information and if this seems like a case where a waiver might be possible since this was not my fault.
 


commentator

Senior Member
Okay, when you contacted the office, did you contact the same people, same place in the agency where the overpayment determination came from? And they told you to "file an appeal" correct? Did you do this? Calling the office to ask about it was not the same as actually going through the step of making the formal "I wish to appeal this overpayment decision." So you are now overpaid by $2015, and they will be offsetting your "entire" unemployment. What does this mean? Do you mean that you are continuing to file weekly or bi weekly certifications and you are not receiving any money, or have you stopped filing weekly certifications?

What SHOULD be happening is that for those weeks you were not eligible due to the severance, you will be considered overpaid, and that overpayment will be taken out of your continuing benefits as you continue to file for weeks until that amount of overpayment is met and repaid. And from then on you will be able to keep drawing until the complete claim is drawn out or until you find another job. (Of course, if this happens before you have the overpayment paid off, they'll want you to work out a repayment plant with them and get it paid back from your wages.)

Okay, so you contacted them, and you told them this was your only source of income (which, incidentally doesn't matter one little tiny bit to the unemployment system, as it is not a needs based poverty program) but what they told you to do is keep making certifications. It doesn't mean that you would be getting any money from this continued certification you're doing, it just means they are taking that weekly benefit and applying it to the overpayment. When the overpayment is paid off, you should begin getting weekly checks again. If you check with them, which you should do, since none of us here can look at your claim and see what is going on, this is what they should say is happening.

Okay, they wouldn't have told you all about waivers, and waivers wouldn't be an issue with you right now, because you are still drawing benefits, and you are still eligible to draw benefits. Waivers are something that are only dealt with, very specifically, by the fraud and overpayment unit, so the average, especially the general claims taker wouldn't be up to the spot on these or would never offer them to you.

Those benefits you should be filing for now are being used to repay the unemployment system for those weeks they have already paid you that shouldn't have been paid. You don't need a waiver, you have the potential to pay them back. As I said before they truly do not care, and are not supposed to care what you live on while you are or are not receiving unemployment benefits. For all they know, your wife or husband is supporting you and you are using the money for pedicures and lattes. Doesn't matter.

If you get another job, or if you elect NOT to certify for weeks in the future, you still owe this money and you still would need to pay it back. They don't care how, they just want their money back. As they noted, this was not due to your fault in any way, so you were not penalized, you could not be prosecuted criminally for this overpayment, but it still has happened. Even if it was "clerical error" on their part, they cannot be penalized for their error by your not having to repay the program. That's just not the way the system works.

The waivers of which they speak in the DOL site are for those who have overpayments, and are no longer eligible to draw a claim and are very likely to be unable to ever pay that money back. If you have an overpayment, for a no fault reason, and are truly financially challenged, there is a provision where you can fill out very detailed income information and they may make a decision that you are too poor to pay off this overpayment. And in that case, they would waive it.

But regardless of your other income situation, you'd not qualify for that right now because you have the rest of a claim that you can draw. This overpayment due to your severance doesn't mean you weren't ever going to be eligible to draw from this separation,. It just meant you have to wait until the severance is dealt with, and then you were eligible for benefits.

What you essentially got was a very short term loan that they now want you to pay back from your unemployment benefits (or if you find another job, it would be from your next job's earnings.) if they had not made the clerical error, you would have not yet received that $2015. It would've been a while until you were eligible to begin receiving benefits. But now, you did get the money, it was a non fault overpayment, and you are going to have to pay it back by continuing to file for weeks of benefits for which you receive no money and it goes back into your claim, or else you are going to have to pony up the money if you stop filing the claim and get another job.

And no, there is no appeal that will fix it so you never owe the money. No, you might postpone the repayment demands, (if you weren't drawing unemployment which they are keeping) but there is not going to be any way you can sue or complain or demand that you not have to pay the money back because they made a clerical error and paid you while the decision was being made about your severance and then later the decision was made that you weren't eligible. They just want the money back. I would suggest you work directly with the number on the overpayment notice and talk to them, let them explain in great detail what has happened and how it will be dealt with.

And do remember, they've not been incompetent and malicious and negligent, and it truly doesn't make any difference to them whether or not you get to draw. The more argumentatively and belligerently you behave to them, the less easy it will be to get this out of the way.
 
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Beoden

New member
I disagree with them not being incompetent. I talked to numerous people while I was filing who told me everything was correct and me collecting was normal and I didn't need to do anything different. I specifically told the first rep I spoke with I didn't want an overpayment issue in the future and she assured me that I was doing everything correctly. So that is textbook incompetence to me. I don't think it was malicious and I am not taking it out on anyone or arguing with them. I am mainly just annoyed that I keep getting told wrong information by anyone I talk to in the Office of Unemployment.

I had already filed one appeal 2 weeks ago and just got a response that the appeal was denied and was going to reappeal for a hearing. So there is no point to appeal it then is what you are saying. Even though I did everything correctly and provided no false or lacking information and was under the assumption everything was correct. Since they were, imo, incompetent, that's just it. I have to pay it back. I am only filing for one more week I found a new job starting on August 5th so this is my last week. I will just be stuck owing them whatever is left.

The waiver was what I was wondering about because it doesn't state those waivers are for people no longer drawing. "Many states provide that, if the overpayment is without fault or fraud on the individual’s part, the individual is not liable to repay the amount overpaid" that is what it says in the Dept of Labor Waiver guildelines then goes on to show Ohio's only 2 reasons being "office error and employer error" This is definitely an office error.

https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/pdf/uilawcompar/2019/overpayments.pdf
Thats the DoL document I was referring to. Also, thank you for your input.
 
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commentator

Senior Member
The process is supposed to be slanted to that if there is reasonable possibility that you will be approved, you are approved, getting you money sooner rather than having you wait for it completely throughout the decision process (and then be back paid for those weeks.) If you'd not been paid at all until they made the decision not to pay while you were receiving the severance, you'd not have been overpaid, but you'd have been without that $2015. As it was, as it states in the literature, you got the money and then had to give it back. That wasn't really incompetence. They probably shouldn't have paid you, it was a slight clerical glitch, but people rarely object to being paid something. As I said, think of it as a short term zero interest loaner.

No, you didn't do anything that was wrong. I'm sure that at every stage when you were told your paperwork and your claim was in order, it was. Then a decision was made about your severance. And that you do not want to pay it back because you didn't do anything wrong and they gave it to you and then changed their decision to pay you for those weeks is not going to a good appeal reason that you should be able to keep the money. Look at it this way. If you were working at a job and your employer made a clerical error and overpaid you on a paycheck, would you be entitled to keep the money, just because they overpaid you?

No, it does not state that waivers are for those who are no longer drawing, But you will not get approved for a waiver unless you are very low income. If you are eligible for unemployment benefits, you are not without income or potential to pay the money back. Likewise if you are otherwise employed. With any overpayment you can ask for a waiver. But as I said, you have to provide a great deal of very detailed information about your financial situation, and if you are working,, and have enough income to be over the poverty level, you probably would not be granted a waiver.
 

Chyvan

Member
I had already filed one appeal 2 weeks ago and just got a response that the appeal was denied and was going to reappeal for a hearing. So there is no point to appeal it then is what you are saying.
OH forces a REdetermination. Unfortunately they call it an "appeal." It confuses people that don't understand what OH does. In any other state doing an appeal, is pretty much the end of the line because so few board of review appeals result in anything changing. However, with OH, the first appeal isn't meaningful. It's done by the same people that made the first determination and statistically results in the same decision.

YES, you should do this upcoming appeal. This appeal is the MOST important part of the process. The first place to prepare is to determine WHY you were disqualified. Your story sounds like it was a severance offset. If that's the case, you find out just WHY the severance is the problem, and figure out if there is a basis to challenge it. Some states don't count severance at all. Some states treat lump sum severances as applying only to the week it was paid. Other states use a bunch of double talk and will try to allocate the severance by week and offset your UI benefits into the future. You have to know WHY the decision was made this way so that you can maybe bring something to the table to CHANGE it. You typing the above with your cryptic interpretation isn't going to get you the help you need.

There were probably 2 to 3 technical paragraphs with a citation(s) to the statute or regulations and maybe even references to wording in your severance agreement. This is a manual process and mistakes can be made in how your severance agreement was interpreted. That's the place to start.

Then if you completely fail on the severance offset, you can go for the waiver, but you'll probably lose if you have future UI benefits because they're just too easy to take. However, if you end up going back to work and never paying back all the overpayment, then there's other things you can do to try not to pay it back. As shown in the link for the US DOL on 6-4. The offset on future UI benefits is 100%, BUT if you don't need benefits because you got a new job that you kept long enough, at around the 3 year mark, they'll eat the loss provided you don't have a tax refund to take, and they don't charge interest or take it to court. Just don't voluntarily take any money out of your pocket to pay them back.
 

commentator

Senior Member
This is one that, if you carry this on through, and spend all this time effort and energy and allow this person with these very special skills and knowledges and abilities to coach you in trying to argue that your severance was regarded wrongly, or that the decision on severance was made not in accordance with Ohio law, and you win an appeal, I want to know that this worked out and this all worked for you. Please come back and let us know.


Quote: "at around the 3 year mark, they'll eat the loss provided you don't have a tax refund to take, and they don't charge interest or take it to court. Just don't voluntarily take any money out of your pocket to pay them back."

OP, I have worked for many years in state unemployment systems, and as things are today, I consider this to be scarily poor advice. As I have said many times in the past. in times of high unemployment, when the agencies are overrun and fighting desperately to keep up with the claims load in general, they are much less likely to pursue overpayments. In times like these, when many people believe unemployment to be a welfare program anyway, and many employers are actively trying to get it to go away, they very well could decide not to "eat the loss" any more.

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Repo
 

Chyvan

Member
I have worked for many years in state unemployment systems,
Try reading the table instead of applying your TN centric knowledge to every claimant's situation.

OH 100% 3 years from date decision is final Yes No No

TN 100% After the expiration of 6 years from overpayment determination No Yes No

OH does NOT take people to court for nonfraud overpayments. So if there's no tax refund to take and no civil action permitted other than future UI benefits, just how is OH going to collect from a claimant that doesn't voluntarily pay back their nonfraud overpayment?
 

Chyvan

Member
You don't need experience administering claims to read a table to know when you can let a state UI agency try to collect the money the hard way instead of trying to scare someone into doing something they don't have to do.
 

commentator

Senior Member
Well, even if you owe it, you don't ever have to pay off anything. Some people have very strange ideas about how things work anyway. You can elect not to pay your bills and take the consequences, betting there will not be any. But as I said, IMO, it is never a good idea to have something like this out there. In spite of what it says on the internet right now and what has happened in the past. Because the flavor of government programs is being changed, all needs-based programs are under attack, and my experience which I do have by the way, has shown me that other things can certainly happen. Unemployment insurance has been a thorn in the side of business for many years now, and if they get a chance, in an "employer friendly" atmosphere, the program could be dismantled all together.

When new legislators come in, in many states, not just the one I am most familiar with, one of the things that frequently has to be explained to them by the state government liaisons from each department is that list of "overpayments"(both fraud and non fraud) sitting there on the books of the unemployment program.

To them, these look like "deadbeats who are stealing taxpayer money!" They don't give a care what it means that they're
non-fraud or fraud overpayments. All it would take is a slight shift in political climate in that direction, and the department could be ordered at the state level to vigorously pursue repayment of ALL overpayments, and not just allowed to do what they've done before. The Michigan situation a few years back where suddenly people with non fraud overpayments found themselves being threatened is an example of what could happen.
 
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Chyvan

Member
When new legislators come in, in many states, not just the one I am most familiar with, one of the things that frequently has to be explained to them by the state government liaisons from each department is that list of "overpayments"(both fraud and non fraud) sitting there on the books of the unemployment program.
Unless you have evidence that OH is changing it's rules, you're not doing this person any favors suggesting they voluntarily pay back the money.
 

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