The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recently shared tips for employers on how to expedite the claim response relating to fraudulent claims. In addition, PA has recently implemented an identification software (ID.me) to help combat fraudulent claims on the front end of the process.
Per the PA Department of Labor and Industry:
- When an employer responds to the notice of claim filed, the Department does not need any of the person’s real employment information for identity theft situations. We are just looking for a response that tells us the claim is fraudulent and should not have been opened. The fields do not need to be completed unless the system requires it (like start & end date, termination date), and when that happens, you can just enter the current date. Do not spend time researching actual hire dates because this is not a real claim.
- The one field you should accurately complete is the reason for separation. For identity theft claims, you should enter the reason for separation as “Still working full-time.” When the system receives the response, it will create an issue on the claim which will prevent payment if it is not already being prevented by some other reason.
- Employers who hired a Third-Party Administrator (TPA) to handle unemployment matters can disregard any Notices of Application. Your TPA should be handling these for you.
Other facts:
- Appealing the financial determination is not the appropriate way to report a fraudulent claim to us, and it’s inundating our monetary appeals staff. Please do not appeal these determinations; use the above steps to report the fraud to us.
- As the employer, you should simply respond to the claim notices but not also file a fraud report using our web site’s “Report Fraud” link. The individual affected should use the “Report Fraud” link to file a report.
- If a payment has already been made on that claim, payments will continue every other week until a staff member is able to deny the claim. Ultimately, you will not be charged for benefits paid to fraudulent, identity theft-related claims. Once benefits are denied, an overpayment will be set up, which credits your account.
- Reporting the same claims multiple times is tying up resources. For as many of these false claims as you are receiving, we are receiving much more. Please do not duplicate your report to us no matter how long it has been since you first reported it.