JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Many unemployed Floridians are reporting being locked out of their unemployment claims multiple times or for prolonged periods of time.
“I just check it everyday, all of a sudden, it’s locked again,” said Joey Wesley, an unemployed veteran.
Wesley has been prompted multiple times to verify his identity with ID.me, the Department of Economic Opportunity’s security company.
“So I went to ID.me, I log in, and they say your identity has already been verified,” Wesley said. “I’m just waiting.”
Wesley said he’s missing nearly eight weeks of unemployment payments.
Zach Lapham said he’s missing about six weeks of his payments.
“It basically has made me homeless,” Lapham said. “I’ve been staying in hotels.”
Both Lapham and his fiancé have been locked out of their accounts multiple times.
DEO did not respond to questions about the topic.
Blake Hall, the CEO of ID.me, responded to questions:
"Virtually all 22 state workforce agencies that ID.me supports operate on 1980s era infrastructure,” Hall said. “As a result, when ID.me verifies an identity for an agency, there are often manual processes involved to update an individual's claim. We have seen cases where those manual processes miss verified individuals. This issue is not specific to Florida but rather an operational issue that impacts all of our partners. We've added this self-serve feature to make it easier for verified individuals to escalate their case and to reduce the operational burden on ID.me and our partners so we can serve more people faster."
As a result, the company has just added a button to report if DEO hasn’t updated their claim. Hall said ID.me will escalate these cases to DEO.
“This is affecting people’s lives,” Wesley said.
To have your case escalated, click on the 'My Account' tab on the ID.me website. The new “report” button should be at the top of your screen.