Criminals in America are exploiting the Coronavirus pandemic in a new way – by collecting unemployment benefits meant for others.

They submit fake unemployment benefit claims using the details of genuine people thereby collecting payments meant to help people in need due to the crisis.

Identity thieves commonly take personal information including name, addresses, date of birth, social security numbers and so on and use those to pretend to be that person and take out loans, credit cards etc. in the victim’s names.

The criminals spend the money and the honest person whose details have been stolen gets the bills.

Banks and other financial institutions do have systems in place to spot these crimes, but these unemployment scams are harder to detect as typically the owner only discovers there has been a theft when:

1. They apply for unemployment and find someone has opened a claim in their name and has been collecting money.
2. They receive a form 1099-G listing unemployment income subject to federal income tax.
3. They receive notice from their state unemployment office confirming that a claim has been filed.
4. They receive notice from their employer that someone has filed for unemployment in their name.

The criminals get the personal information from the usual sources – phishing emails, fake web sites, phone calls pretending be an official of a trusted organisation etc.

If you receive notification that an unemployment claim has been made in your name and it wasn’t by you – get in touch immediately to get it sorted out.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.