Filtering out fraud still bane of state’s jobless aid agency

With two major federal jobless benefit programs scheduled to cease next month, it appears that scammers once again are flooding the state’s unemployment assistance system with phony claims, in order to cash in before those income streams run dry and qualify for future assistance.

Those two entitlements — one that extended unemployment benefits to gig workers and the self-employed and another that allowed claimants an additional 13 weeks of assistance — will expire on Dec. 26 without additional funding from Congress.

Gov. Charlie Baker highlighted this recurring hacking problem by using a Statehouse press conference on Monday to lambaste those responsible for the “tremendous amount of bot-based fraud” plaguing Massachusetts’ unemployment system.

“Some of these fraudsters are actually paying people to call unemployment offices around the country and advocate for benefits, pretending to be somebody they’re not,” Baker said.

To put the level of online fraud in context, the Baker administration indicated that of 31,000 unemployment claims filed over the Nov. 14-15 weekend, just 1,000 have been verified as legitimate so far.

It wasn’t clear how these potential fraudulent claim numbers compare to earlier weeks.

Jobless claims dropped for several months after the MarchApril spike, when businesses shuttered at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. But as infections have begun to surge again in Massachusetts and throughout the country, U.S. Labor Department data released last week showed signs the economy’s modest gains could be slipping as initial unemployment filings rose again for the first time in weeks.

This isn’t the first time that criminals have targeted the billions in federal coronavirus-relief aid that was funneled into states’ unemployment systems through the CARES Act.

In May, Baker’s administration disclosed that a sophisticated international scam network had targeted the commonwealth’s unemployment agency, along with those in about a dozen other states, in apparent attempt to take advantage of those overwhelmed offices due to the skyrocketing job losses caused by the pandemic.

In July, the state’s Department of Unemployment Assistance reported that it had identified more than 58,000 bogus claims and had recovered a total of $158 million.

That breach prompted the DUA to halt weekly payments for some claimants and to block the initial filings of others as it investigated.

According to the state, more than 1.6 million unemployment claims were filed from March 8 to June 30, and that about 62% of those claims were paid or have been deemed eligible to be paid. Denials had been appealed in about 70,000 cases.

We don’t know if the current gaming of the unemployment benefits system rises to the previous level, but the degree of frustration experienced by out-ofwork residents hit with delays or rejections of their legitimate claims is no less devastating.

Baker said that anyone with a legitimate claim who’s having trouble accessing benefits should reach out to the DUA and to the governor’s office of constituent services.

Meanwhile, the funding clock’s ticking as those delays in approving claims mount.

“There’s a continuing resolution that has to be passed by Congress between now and the end of the calendar year, ” Baker said. “They need to reauthorize some of the unemployment funding they put out.”

More federal funds will ease some portion of the jobless pain.

So would a more comprehensive claim-vetting system.