Deadline nears to join settlement

Register if falsely accused of unemployment fraud

Unemployment insurance claimants who were wrongly accused of fraud and had money and other assets seized have a Wednesday deadline to register to join a $20 million class action settlement.

Claimants are eligible for compensation if they received an initial determination or redetermination of intentional misrepresentation issued by the state’s Unemployment Insurance Agency’s automated jobless system, called MiDAS, between Oct. 1, 2013, and Aug. 31, 2015, and had their paychecks or other assets seized on or after March 9, 2015.

The settlement, reached in October, is the result of a 2015 class-action lawsuit called Bauserman v. Unemployment Insurance Agency. The state has acknowledged that about 40,000 people were accused of fraud by the computer system, which operated without human supervision and had an error rate as high as 93%.

Counsel for the class — the law firm Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni and Rivers — and the Michigan Attorney General have a list of about 8,100 eligible claimants. However, the firm said in a news release last week that “hundreds of emails, text messages, telephone calls and letters notifying victims that they are eligible to receive a sizeable cash award have gone unanswered.”

Below is more information on how to register, deadlines claimants should be aware of and information on who to contact for help.

How do I register?

To register, go to UIAClassAction.com or call the claims administrator, Analytics Consulting

LLC, at 833-438-5028.

What’s the deadline to register?

Wednesday. It takes about five minutes to register, the press release said.

What other deadlines do I need to know about?

Claimants have until April 14 to submit claim forms, opt out of the settlement or raise objections to the settlement. More information

can be found at UIAClassAction.com. release that if claimants receive a phone call, email, text message, letter or social media message from Analytics Consulting LLC, it is not a scam. If claimants have been contacted by Analytics Consulting, that means they’re eligible for settlement money, the law firm said.

If claimants have received communication about a settlement but are unsure of its legitimacy, they can call Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni and Rivers at 248-398-9800.