The official-looking letter from Springfield was the first clue that something might be amiss.
Why on earth would the Illinois Department of Employment Security be reaching out to me?
My heart sank as I looked carefully at the contents: It was informing me that I had been approved to receive unemployment benefits and that my last day of work had been in July.
This, of course, was news to me, since I was scheduled to go into the office that night to work my regular shift with the night copy desk.
The letter mailed Oct. 29 also mentioned that I soon would be receiving a debit card that I would have to activate in order to receive my weekly benefit.
Clearly, this was a mistake. Then I remembered that something like this had happened to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul as part of a growing fraud scam to collect benefits during the pandemic.
Perhaps the fraudsters didn’t realize that I’m not worth much. I’ve been working part-time hours for a few years now.
Still, someone had access to my personal information, and that is frightening. The last thing I need – or anyone else needs – right now is to have to deal with identity theft.
My first action was to inform my human resources director about the problem. She suggested that I file a complaint with IDES. Since I could do that online, I did that immediately.
Next, I checked my free credit reports with TransUnion, Experian and Equifax to make sure there wasn’t anything weird going on. Happily, there wasn’t.
However, just to be sure, I also informed one of the credit-reporting agencies that I wanted a fraud alert placed on my accounts. They are obligated to inform the others.
Next, I went to the Illinois Attorney General’s website to learn more about what I was dealing with. It turns out this problem has exploded since the pandemic began. A 40-minute video details the problem and what a consumer like me can do.
One thing I hadn’t already done was to put a hard credit freeze on my accounts. This is a step above a fraud alert and offers another line of protection. I did that, too.
Another step was to file a report with the McHenry Police Department. A very nice officer explained that I was one of about three people that day who were reporting the same thing.
The main thing he told me, and that I read more than once during my research, was to not activate that debit card when I got it. Apparently some people are mistaking it for some sort of stimulus payment, which probably is something the fraudsters would like to happen.
If all of this sounds exhausting, well, it was. One final stop was to go to the Federal Trade Commission to report the fraud there, too. They actually have information to walk a consumer through all the steps I just mentioned.
On Monday, I received two letters: one that said my filing had been fraudulent and another that said I needed to pay the money back.
So now what? That’s a very good question. Clearly my information was compromised somewhere, as was a lot of people’s. I know I was part of a data breach a few years back at a big-box store. Since the name of my company that was listed on that unemployment benefits letter was an old one, that’s about as good a guess as I have.
Still, it’s something we all need to be aware of, particularly in these stressful times. I’ll need to be extra vigilant about my credit, and I’ll need to check on it more frequently than I have in the past.
And if you also have been hit by this scam, you have my sympathy. I’m right there with you.