PORT ANGELES – In just the past week, at least 14 Clallam County, City of Sequim and Port Angeles employees have been notified that fraudsters have filed false unemployment claims in their names, and the problem appears to be growing fast.
We reached out to Port Angeles Human Resources Manager Abbi Fountain at 11:00am Tuesday to see if she had any similar cases, and she told us there were none. 40 minutes later she wrote back and told us she had received notice of 2 false claims in the last half hour.
Law enforcement officials statewide say criminals continue exploiting COVID-19 to commit widespread unemployment fraud, using victims’ identities to file false claims.
Scott Michael, Policy Manager for the state Employment Security Department, said last week that the highest number of fraud claims the department had seen so far involved public jobs — government and school sectors.
Among the victims is Sequim Finance Director Sue Hagener.
“I mean, it’s really hit fast. It was two over the weekend, three on Monday and a new one again this morning. So that’s six incidents in less than three days. The next step for the City of Sequim is just to put a team together so that we can provide some guidance for folks, so that anybody else that’s hit at the city of Sequim will know what to do step by step.”
If a claim was filed using your information, you need to give the state permission to deny and cancel it. You can do so by clicking here.
You should report the incident to your local police agency or Sheriff’s Office and get a case number.
It’s recommended that victims of identity theft immediately contact the 3 major credit bureaus and obtain your free credit reports, and we’ve included phone numbers for each in our story.
You can have a fraud alert put on your identity or freeze your credit. Doing either is free by law. A fraud alert is free and will make it harder for someone to open new accounts in your name.
To place a fraud alert, contact one of the three credit bureaus. That company must tell the other two.
Experian 1-888-397-3742
TransUnion 1-800-680-7289
Equifax 1-888-766-0008
You should also notify your banks and your credit card companies as soon as possible.