https://hotair.com/archives/ja...ive-fraud-uncovered/

California’s Employment Development Department has shut down all new claims for the next two weeks, while they prepare an updated identity verification system to combat fraud within the state’s unemployment system.

The state has shut down all new unemployment insurance claims as of Saturday night due to unemployment insurance fraud, sources tell KCAL 9.

People who are already in the process of receiving claims will not be impacted by the changes.

CBS Los Angeles has been investigating fraudulent unemployment claims for the past month or two and it’s been something of an embarrassment to the state. Their reporters have found claims being paid to individuals who don’t even live in the state or, in some cases, in the country. The total number of such cases is unknown for now, but given how easy they were to find, it’s probably quite a few.

In some cases, multiple benefits payments were being delivered to the same address. That’s the same situation we saw in Colorado, where one family with both homeowners still working began receiving benefits payments for 19 different people using the couple’s address.

Washington state lost more than half a billion dollars to fraudulent claims this year. They’ve since managed to recover almost half of it, but the rest is probably out of the country and will prove difficult if not impossible to claw back. Chicago has been dealing with the same mess also.

The main problem is that none of these systems were equipped to handle hundreds of thousands of claims all coming in during a short period of time. Faced with a choice between making people wait for months while the claims were vetted in the normal fashion or just getting the checks in the mail, they opted to remove the human inspectors from the loop and just begin approving claims as they arrived . This worked out well for the newly unemployed, but it was also a ripe opportunity for scammers who were quick to take advantage of it.

So what will California do to address this when the system comes back online in two weeks? They claim to have a new system dubbed “ID.me” that’s supposed to cut down on fraud. But this is an untested system that neither the applicants nor most of the people processing the claims have had to use before. The odds of that rolling out relatively seamlessly on the first try are likely slim to none.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Faced with a choice between making people wait for months while the claims were vetted in the normal fashion or just getting the checks in the mail, they opted to remove the human inspectors from the loop and just begin approving claims as they arrived.

Just imagine that discussion in the boardroom at the California Unemployment Office HQ:

Underling: "Sir, people are apparently reporting that our horrible beauracratic system is too unwieldy... So how about we just rubber stamp everything? It'll be much easier and quicker that way."

Boss: "Attaboy. Pay attention, folks. That's the kinda initiative we need around here. You're going places, son!"

These words in Gumps voice were the first thing that popped up in my brains

I suspect that this will be the system they use for mail in voting. Just count the vote, we'll worry about all of that ID stuff later.

quote:

Originally posted by sigspecops:
I suspect that this will be the system they use for mail in voting. Just count the vote, we'll worry about all of that ID stuff later.

If I remember correctly, in CA all you need to get a drivers license is some proof of residency. No formal ID (or proof of citizenship) is required. And, and, and, you check a box on the DL form and you are registered to vote. I wonder how many illegals in CA are registered to vote?

The unemployment system was flaky before the virus. Some years ago I was with a construction mgmt firm. Without notice, an employee decided to go on vacation rather than oversee construction on a site. Things on the site got very messy. We terminated him for cause. He filed for unemployment, CA approved, we appealed, documented the circumstances from third parties. CA gave him the benefit anyway and our unemployment tax took a big hike.

As to this fraud, I don't know what the problem is, CA has plenty of $$ to cover it. And it keeps the gov't workers busy.

That's the state gov that I know...smh

Good for them. I wonder if republican run states have the same issue of fraud?

Fraud is everywhere. Greed is one of the basics of human nature, and a lot of folks out there (regardless of location) will do whatever it takes to try to squeeze out extra "free" money, especially through low-effort means like simply lying on an application.

Worse yet, they spread there politics & bullshit via diaspora to Oregon, Washington & Colorado..

Operation Clean Sweep.

Just arrest and prosecute every single instance of unemployment insurance fraud. It was clearly an easy crime to commit, so just see it as a taxpayer funded opportunity to collect the low hanging fruit of crime.

There won't be another opportunity to use billions of dollars of emergency funding as bait again for (hopefully) many more years.

quote:

Originally posted by CQB60:
Worse yet, they spread there politics & bullshit via diaspora to Oregon, Washington & Colorado..

Those places have their own home grown brand of gov incompetence, just look at the city gov of Portland, Seattle and Denver.

ID.me - Sounds like the need to prove who you are.

Shocking, they should use a similar system for voting

Identity verification? I heard that's racist. Some people of similar racial demography are apparently incapable of getting ID. That is what I am told.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Fraud is everywhere. Greed is one of the basics of human nature, and a lot of folks out there (regardless of location) will do whatever it takes to try to squeeze out extra "free" money, especially through low-effort means like simply lying on an application.

And who could possibly forget this little matter of highway robbery of taxpayer dollars during the Crimson Kenyan’s reign of destruction?!

TAX LOOPHOLE COSTS BILLIONS

Millions of illegal immigrants are getting a bigger tax refund than you. Eyewitness News shows a massive tax loophole that provides billions of dollars in tax credits to undocumented workers.

ID? Verification? Bah! We don't need no stinking Verification!

I got this email today from Uber. Freaking Uber. Why the hell is Uber telling me to vote? Furthermore, what the hell is this crap about registering to vote online? What the ever-loving hell? Is this for a high school class president election or the election to decide the leader of the free world?

This is pure Kafka. Truly.