JACKSONVILLE, Fla — As if unemployed Floridians aren’t suffering enough, they are becoming a target for scammers.
“CONNECT is already tricky for a computer science major,” said unemployment expert Vanessa Brito. “Imagine someone who is not savvy on the computer.”
Brito says the complicated CONNECT system is what has pushed many people to fall for scams. Usually, the scammer offers to correctly file your unemployment claim for a fee.
“Apparently they started charging $150, then they went up to $250,” Brito said.
Facebook comments started circulating, appearing to be people with success stories from these entities, but they are from the scammers themselves.
“It’s the same message and they mass produce it onto all of these groups,” Brito said.
Unemployment groups on Facebook are very common. They are communities of claimants helping each other with claim issues. Brito said although these groups can be helpful, some people release too much personal information.
“You’re telling people what they need and they can cater the scam and customize their message to you,” Brito said.
Group moderators are starting to throw out people who they find are preying on their members.
“Somebody who has the heart to do that right now shows the two facets of humanity, the need and the greed,” Brito said.
Brito says if you lose a hundred dollars to these scammers, you’re actually one of the lucky ones.
“It’s not about the hundred dollars they scam you out of,” Brito said. “It’s about the long-term effects.”
These scammers will ask for your personal information to file a claim, and once they have access to it, they can change your banking information and your address to have unemployment payments routed to themselves.
That is exactly what happened to Larry Deville
“Whoever the fraud was collected seven weeks,” Deville said.
Deville has no idea how the hacker received his information, as he said he never fell for one of these scams. He has yet to regain the money that’s owed to him.
“They will end up paying for it,” Deville said. “What goes around comes around.”
Brito says Deville’s case is the most common.
Another, more complicated, scam lurks.
There are people who really will help file claims, but require a power of attorney over claimants.
This person will take over the claim, and typically keep a percentage of the benefits for themselves.
“With a power of attorney, you can change direct deposit information, you can call the Way2Go card, you can change your address, you can change everything,” Brito said.
Brito highly advises against this as it gives up too much power.
Brito has built a reputation for effectively helping claimants for free. Brito has connections within the Department of Economic Opportunity and has political ties in many places to get claims fixed.
“People are coming to me because they are struggling to pay their bills,” Brito said. “Why would I charge them for it?”
The Department of Economic Opportunity advises claimants to also be aware of scammers posing as DEO employees. The department said DEO employees will never ask for a payment to process your claim.
You can report scams by calling 833-FL-APPLY or floridajobs.org/reportscam.