commentator
Senior Member
I have over 30 years of working in the unemployment system under my belt here. I worked some of that time in the fraud investigations part of the operation. Why have you totally disregarded what I said to you?
And you're still so sick and so worried and so upset and repeatedly asking for more feedback yada yada.....and you're still SO afraid you will be prosecuted. No, there is no way I can guarantee you won't be prosecuted for unemployment fraud, because frankly, I do not know that you have not at least commited it. It certainly doesn't sound like it. But I can assure you that the chances of your being prosecuted are very very very small, and that you are very very very far from that point right now. Okay?
And you're still totally embroiled in your positive impression that your job searches are what they've found out about. Really, really? Okay, let me explain this to you. The unemployment system of your state processes thousands of claims a week. Every piece of social security connected information that you turn in anywhere is cross matched automatically by computers, and this catches most of the biggest mistakes, frauds, mis-reporting, mistakes, etc. that people make about their claims. Some of it is deliberate, some is not. When a report is generated that anything is wrong or that something turns up that is questionable, the fraud unit investigators investigate it. Usually it can be resolved. If it is determined that you misreported something, or failed to report a retirement benefit that you received or something, it is determined whether you did this due to not knowing the correct thing to do or in genuine mistake, or whether it was misreported deliberately in an effort to defraud the unemployment system. That makes a huge difference in whether they'll ask for the money back, or ask for it back with penalties, or tell you it's okay, you did not make a mistake.
One of the biggest problems that unemployment systems have is that if we require people to make x number of work searches, and if we do not specifically ask them when and where, you can really assume everyone's going to put down yes, of course they made those work searches. In all states, there is a benefits quality auditing system, where one out of every so many claims is subject to serious evaluation for every detail of the claim, and that one out of so many people will be called in and required to document work searches if it becomes an issue.
But the general public, who believes that unemployment is "welfare" and many over zealous legislators tend to think it would be a wonderful idea to have every claimant have to make x number of job searches a week and have to list specific places where they went and filled out applications or left a resume. The problem with this is that it tends to aggravate the dickens out of employers. And a lot of employers don't keep copies of applications or records of job applicants who ask. They are not required to report anywhere the number of people or the names and social security numbers of everyone who has filed an application with them every week. They'd hate doing that. Therefore, there's no cross matching in any computer system regarding job searches. It would have to be done one on one, very labor intensive, using employer-visiting investigators. And there aren't that many of them, and they're doing a lot of other things.
There is no centralized cross match of your unemployment weeks with the places you filed applications. And the system does NOT have the time and manpower to go out and check every employer in the state for whether every claimant in the state has actually filed an application with them and on the date they put down on their claim that they did it. As I said, I will be very surprised if they are calling you because of some issue related to your work searches. Don't volunteer a bunch of stuff about this if they don't ask.
So as I said before, the chances are wonderful that your 1099 is what has caused the red flag. And if it was the one time withdrawal of your 401K, it was not wages, was not a disqualifying type of retirement pension and was not something that would have been at all likely to affect your claim. If you had received it and reported it, they'd have stopped your claim till they investigated it and determined whether or not it was something you should've reported. And now you wouldn't be getting called in. But you've not committed fraud. You failed to understand that you might've been supposed to report that money. This is no where near getting you prosecuted. But they are going to check it out if they get a notice that you received a 1099 during the time that you received unemployment benefits. That's the size of it.
And you're still so sick and so worried and so upset and repeatedly asking for more feedback yada yada.....and you're still SO afraid you will be prosecuted. No, there is no way I can guarantee you won't be prosecuted for unemployment fraud, because frankly, I do not know that you have not at least commited it. It certainly doesn't sound like it. But I can assure you that the chances of your being prosecuted are very very very small, and that you are very very very far from that point right now. Okay?
And you're still totally embroiled in your positive impression that your job searches are what they've found out about. Really, really? Okay, let me explain this to you. The unemployment system of your state processes thousands of claims a week. Every piece of social security connected information that you turn in anywhere is cross matched automatically by computers, and this catches most of the biggest mistakes, frauds, mis-reporting, mistakes, etc. that people make about their claims. Some of it is deliberate, some is not. When a report is generated that anything is wrong or that something turns up that is questionable, the fraud unit investigators investigate it. Usually it can be resolved. If it is determined that you misreported something, or failed to report a retirement benefit that you received or something, it is determined whether you did this due to not knowing the correct thing to do or in genuine mistake, or whether it was misreported deliberately in an effort to defraud the unemployment system. That makes a huge difference in whether they'll ask for the money back, or ask for it back with penalties, or tell you it's okay, you did not make a mistake.
One of the biggest problems that unemployment systems have is that if we require people to make x number of work searches, and if we do not specifically ask them when and where, you can really assume everyone's going to put down yes, of course they made those work searches. In all states, there is a benefits quality auditing system, where one out of every so many claims is subject to serious evaluation for every detail of the claim, and that one out of so many people will be called in and required to document work searches if it becomes an issue.
But the general public, who believes that unemployment is "welfare" and many over zealous legislators tend to think it would be a wonderful idea to have every claimant have to make x number of job searches a week and have to list specific places where they went and filled out applications or left a resume. The problem with this is that it tends to aggravate the dickens out of employers. And a lot of employers don't keep copies of applications or records of job applicants who ask. They are not required to report anywhere the number of people or the names and social security numbers of everyone who has filed an application with them every week. They'd hate doing that. Therefore, there's no cross matching in any computer system regarding job searches. It would have to be done one on one, very labor intensive, using employer-visiting investigators. And there aren't that many of them, and they're doing a lot of other things.
There is no centralized cross match of your unemployment weeks with the places you filed applications. And the system does NOT have the time and manpower to go out and check every employer in the state for whether every claimant in the state has actually filed an application with them and on the date they put down on their claim that they did it. As I said, I will be very surprised if they are calling you because of some issue related to your work searches. Don't volunteer a bunch of stuff about this if they don't ask.
So as I said before, the chances are wonderful that your 1099 is what has caused the red flag. And if it was the one time withdrawal of your 401K, it was not wages, was not a disqualifying type of retirement pension and was not something that would have been at all likely to affect your claim. If you had received it and reported it, they'd have stopped your claim till they investigated it and determined whether or not it was something you should've reported. And now you wouldn't be getting called in. But you've not committed fraud. You failed to understand that you might've been supposed to report that money. This is no where near getting you prosecuted. But they are going to check it out if they get a notice that you received a 1099 during the time that you received unemployment benefits. That's the size of it.