PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) -- Fraud has been a growing concern in recent weeks for Pennsylvania officials handling unemployment claims. The Department of Labor and Industry has taken steps to stop it, but they say claimants should be extra careful.
Secretary Jerry Oleksiak says that, although their top priority is responding to all the people who file for unemployment, "the big issue, of course, that we’re continuing to battle is PUA fraud.”
The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program assists people who aren’t traditionally eligible for unemployment.
Because of a recent surge in suspicious PUA claims, Oleksiak said, the department contracted with a federally certified identity verification provider, ID.me.
He says the arrangement has been working well so far.
“We’re continuing to make progress at confirming the identities of legit claimants for the PUA program," he said.
“We’re working with ID.me to steadily increase the number of verifications we make daily, so we can quickly get through every claimant who is waiting through this process."
Still, he wants to remind applicants to keep their personal information to themselves.
“We’ve heard about fraudsters posing as (Department of Licenses and Inspections) employees on calls they make to Pennsylvanians. They’ll say they need your user name or password or social security number or other information so they can fix an issue.”
Oleksiak says L&I would never ask for any of this information over the phone or social media, and no one should give it out if they get a call like this.
Oleksiak says the state is also sharing information with other states to help fight fraud.