Over 300 Tri-Cities school employees are victims of unemployment scam
Hundreds of Tri-Cities school employees are victims of identify theft after fraudsters set up fake unemployment accounts to steal money from the state.
About 160 Pasco school employees and 125 from Kennewick reported that scam artists created the false accounts using their information. Richland school employees also were affected, but it’s unclear how many.
“There is no indication that this stemming from any data breach at the district, and we have reports that this is affecting individuals across the state,” said Richland’s Communications Director Ty Beaver.
There have been hundreds of reports to Tri-Cities police agencies about identity theft in recent weeks tied to the rash of unemployment fraud. The victim’s don’t appear to share any connection to each other.
The same fraud has been reported around the state targeting employees for cities, universities and healthcare systems.
The crooks are using their personal information to apply for unemployment benefits. In several cases, victims are learning about the fraud when their employers ask why they’re filing for unemployment.
Employment Security Department Commissioner Suzi LeVine said the department is taking measures to prevent hundreds of millions of more dollars from being stolen.
The state is also working with federal law enforcement, banks, credit unions and the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate the fraud.
The Employment Security Department told The Seattle Times for a May 14 story that the number of fraudulent unemployment benefit claims jumped 27-fold to 700 between March and April and suspected criminals collected nearly $1.6 million.
This is targeting people who’ve already had their personal information stolen for instance from the 2017 Equifax data breach that exposed the personal information of 147 million people, police and state officials. Criminals then try to route the state payments to their own bank accounts.
What to do
Pasco school officials sent out a memo to teachers when the state issued its warning. Some district employees have been victims of the scam and leaders sent out information “to assist you in protecting your personal information.”
They offered a series of suggestions for people to protect themselves of being taken advantage of.
▪ Go to secure.esd.wa.gov/home and check to see if you already have a SecureAccess Washington account.
▪ If you don’t have one, then use your personal email to create one. This won’t start an unemployment claim, but it will associate your Social Security number with your email address
▪ If an account exists with your information you will get a warning that says, “The SSN you entered already exists and is linked to this partly hidden email address.” If you don’t recognize the email, then you may be a victim of identity theft.
If you suspect someone has made a fraudulent claim in your name, the Employment Security Department suggested in its release Friday you take these steps:
▪ Report it to the Federal Trade Commission identity theft website at identitytheft.gov.
▪ Request free credit reports at annualcreditreport.com and review them for fraudulent activity.
▪ Find additional tips from the Washington State Attorney General at atg.wa.gov/recovering-identity-theft-or-fraud.