Fraudulent EDD letters mailed to Lancaster home
LANCASTER — The flood of fraudulent Employment Development Department checks started shortly after Randy Hall’s friend put his east Lancaster house up for sale.
The friend lives in Glendale, so a neighbor picks up the mail in between visits. The letters are addressed to different people.
“When he goes out to check his mail there were people driving by, wanting to get into his mail box. He had to tell them to get out of there,” Hall said Monday.
Hall offered to take the letters to Assemblyman Tom Lackey’s office.
“I’ve taken over 20 to Tom Lackey’s office. I’ve got another 40 I’m going to take over today,” Hall said.
The letters are addressed to different people.
“I’m kind of concerned that if this fraud’s happening like this then who’s ignoring the addresses,” Hall said.
George Andrews, who serves as Chief of Staff for
Assemblyman Lackey said that as Lackey’s office gets the EDD letters they ship them to Sacramento.
“Our office has gotten little to no direction as to how EDD is fighting this fraud,” Andrews wrote in an email.
Barry C. White, a public information officer for the EDD, wrote in an email that the department has taken action to suspend or cancel suspicious high volume, multiple claims filed at the same
address.
“This is in the wake of scams using extensive stolen identity information, particularly in the federal (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance) program. Extra efforts are underway to verify the identities of high-volume multiple claimants citing the same address in order to protect benefits for any legitimate claimants who could be at that location while weeding out potentially fraudulent cases,” White wrote.
White advised that those claimants who have already gone through the department’s current ID Verification process, provided copies of their ID documents, and their identity is verified in the system – the department will be able to eliminate or minimize any interruption in their benefit payments.
“For those claimants who have never submitted copies of identity documents, we are taking additional verification steps with them now. These individuals are receiving an email, text and notice in the mail about the identity documents EDD needs them to provide. We encourage them to use the new Document Upload capability available through UI Online to help us expedite the verification of their identity so we can re-establish payments for legitimate claimants quickly. The EDD is taking every effort to ensure benefits are paid to eligible claimants, while shutting off or preventing any benefits paid to scammers.” White wrote.
Additionally, EDD investigators continue to partner with federal, state, and local authorities to bring offenders engaging in benefit fraud to justice. Since the beginning of August, investigators have contributed to more than 40 arrests throughout the state, while providing helpful benefits information to strengthen additional local investigations.
The department recommended sending any fraudulent documents or mail directly to EDD investigators through EDD PO Box 826880, MIC 43, Sacramento, CA 94280-0225.
Write “Return to Sender” on the envelope and provide it to your mail carrier. Envelopes that may contain debit cards that have yet to be activated can also be returned to sender. The cards are sent on behalf of the Bank of America from an address in Tennessee.