AUSTIN (KXAN) – Texas is under attack. So is nearly every other state in the union. The assault is silent and those hit don’t know they’re hit until it’s too late.
“My husband received two different notifications from the Texas Workforce Commission informing him that he had applied for unemployment insurance,” Lisa Martin said, holding the tri-folded notification letters.
There was one problem: Miller’s husband isn’t unemployed. He’s worked for the Texas Department of Transportation for years.
The TWC letter shows Miller was set to receive $535 weekly with a total eligibility of up to $13,910. Someone, somewhere, stole her husband’s personal identifying information – including his social security number – and filed a claim.
The state caught the fraud in one of its basic fraud checks. The TWC sent notification letters to the Martins and to TxDOT. Both were able to notify the TWC of the fraudulent claim immediately.
“I kind of credit his employer, who is TxDOT, with quickly notifying the Texas Workforce Commission and hopefully stopping things before they’ve gone too far,” Martin told KXAN. “And, I know that when my husband spoke with people in the human resources department, some of those people themselves had just had their information taken. So, they were quite familiar with this.”
Since January, TxDOT said it received 529 fraudulent unemployment claims filed using stolen identities of employed TxDOT workers. The Martins also received a letter from the TWC confirming the unemployment application was an act of fraud.
The Martins have placed locks and monitoring on their digital identities and filed a report with the Austin Police Department.
“Do you have any confidence that the person or people who did this to you all will ever be caught?” Barr asked.
“No. Not at all,” Martin replied.
Since March 2020, the TWC’s received 5.1 million unemployment claims with an average of 81,000 claims each month. In May, the TWC told KXAN the agency received 737,000 “suspicious claims,” meaning ones the agency suspects were fraudulent.