60% of VEC website login attempts fail

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) — Investigators on your side have continued to track efforts to overhaul the Virginia Jobs Board after its painful performance during the pandemic.

The agency’s major problem is an estimated $1.6 billion loss due to fraudulent unemployment claims. The VEC confirms that it is working to investigate nearly 280,000 fraudulent claims since March 2020.

During the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of Virginians waited desperately for months for unemployment checks. People couldn’t get through VEC’s hotline as the agency was drowning in a tsunami of complaints, understaffing and outdated technology. So the state began to rush benefit payments without scrutinizing cases. As one can imagine, many have manipulated the system.

“Our potential fraud, which we are working on significantly right now, exceeds $1.5 billion,” VEC Commissioner Carrie Roth said. Roth is the agency’s new commissioner, appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Roth said $100 million has already been confirmed as definitely stolen. The rest of the $1.6 billion is still under investigation. The VEC now partners with the state attorney general’s office to prosecute fraudsters targeting your tax money.

“We’re going to go after the rings…and we’re going to go after the individuals,” Roth continued.

For example, Sadie Mitchell, 30, of Midlothian, recently pleaded guilty to stealing over $1 million in government aid during the pandemic. Prosecutors say Mitchell filed at least 20 fraudulent unemployment claims using the identities of inmates and an accomplice. She now faces up to 30 years in prison.

To help combat future fraud, VEC’s new website, which went live last fall, features a host of safeguards. However, NBC12 discovered that these safeguards prevented many legitimate requesters from accessing the website. According to data from the VEC, about 60% of Virginians who now try to go online cannot.

“When I try to log in it tells me I’m not in the system,” Dyan Stanley said. “And when I try to create a new connection, it tells me I’m already in the system.”

Stanley is still unable to log in to the new VEC user portal to facilitate claims filing for claimants and employers.

Stanley’s unemployment claim was denied last year because it was mistakenly reported for fraud. She says her attempts to rectify the situation with VEC representatives were unsuccessful.

“I sent them three sets of proof of my identity…I call at least every other day, if not every day,” she said.

Still, Stanley didn’t get a dime.

Attorney Pat Levy-Lavelle of the Legal Aid Justice Center led a class action lawsuit against the VEC for its failure to obtain benefits within a reasonable time in 2021. That federal lawsuit has since been settled, with the VEC working to clear 92,000 claims pending that accumulated at the height of the pandemic.

Levy-Lavelle now says many of the complaints are about people being barred from the new VEC website.

“These are bona fide applicants trying to send the documents they have been asked for. But they’re not getting answers and they still can’t get benefits because of these alleged unresolved identity issues,” Levy-Lavelle said.

“We have pretty strict safeguards on that,” Roth said. “We’re continually testing, making adjustments… It’s a balance we’re trying to strike to make sure we’re not excluding Virginians who have earned these benefits. But we also need to be aware that those who are bad actors are also looking for new ways (to hack the system).”

Roth says the VEC has a team of 75 employees working to resolve red flags caused by mistargeted applicants for fraud.

“But I’ll tell you, in those phone calls that we’ve made to people, about 50% are lines that are disconnected, or… no one is returning the phone call,” she noted.

A new state law that went into effect July 1 also requires employers to file electronically with the VEC. Roth says this will help speed up claims and eliminate fraud. She says the VEC is also installing new online technology to verify someone’s identity more quickly if they are reported for fraud.

In addition to technology upgrades, since the summer of 2021, the VEC has added around a thousand employees. According to the Joint Audit and Legislative Review Commission, it has been a long wait to get the additional staff, although the VEC is in crisis mode and unprepared to handle the spike of 2 million jobless claims.

“When the pandemic hit the VEC, the agency was at its lowest funding level in 50 years, and received in one week – 50 times the normal number of unemployment claims. So it really created a perfect tsunami,” said Roth, who was not a commissioner at the height of the pandemic. “They had outdated technology and no clear path to handle this workload.”

“The agency did not receive any assistance with additional staff until a year and a half into the pandemic,” she continued, noting that the VEC had to wait months for the Assembly general approves the funding.

The VEC currently has over 1,800 employees, up from just 800 in March 2020.

“In the call center alone, there were 500 additional people. We’re actually in a place where we’re slowing down,” Roth said.

But NBC12 continues to receive weekly complaints from people waiting for benefits, who need their cases resolved, or who can’t access VEC, especially online.

“I sent them letters, called them and got no response,” said Mary O’Brien. O’Brien received dozens of letters from the VEC telling her she owed $3,900 in unemployment overpayments.

More than 335,000 Virginians have received the same overpayment notice, even though the error was not their fault. NBC12 has confirmed that the VEC is currently working to recover nearly $860 million in overpayments improperly made during the pandemic.

O’Brien filled out the waiver that could potentially forgive the money. However, she still receives notices asking her to refund the money.

“They’re withholding my income tax until they complete their investigation,” O’Brien added. The most recent NBC12 data found by the Labor Department shows the agency still lags in critical areas.

Virginia now ranks 10th from bottom for resolution of first-level calls within 21 days. At the height of the pandemic, Virginia was second to last. Currently, the VEC is working on almost 46,000 of these cases.

For second-tier appeals, which require in-person hearings, Virginia waits an average of 310 days for a case to be heard, the second-worst in the nation, with 52,000 cases currently pending.

“The amount of work cannot be underestimated,” continued Roth, who says the VEC has made progress and continues to push forward with improvements. “These are real people with real lives that we impact.”

“What matters to us is making sure that every Virginian who has filed a legitimate unemployment claim gets answers…gets a fair chance as soon as possible to get their benefits. And there are still a lot of people waiting,” Levy-Lavelle said.

The new state law is also intended to ensure that the VEC has more control and continues to move forward. For example, the agency was instructed to simplify its documents for claimants, gather regular public feedback, make more IT improvements, and create a resilience plan for the future to better manage a huge increase in unemployment claims.

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