COLUMBUS, Ohio — The good news: Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) Director Matt Damschroder announced Monday that the agency’s IT team discovered and fixed a security flaw that fraudsters recently attempted to exploit in Ohio’s unemployment system.
Over the past three weeks the department noticed an increased number of attempts to fraudulently access the state’s unemployment system. The cause was determined to be a code flaw in the Ohio Job Insurance (OJI) system, specifically the linking of identity and authentication functionality between OJI and the state’s OH|ID single sign-on system.
As a precaution, ODJFS locked more than 28,000 accounts with suspicious activity.
When an account is locked, the legitimate user cannot access their unemployment account and payments on the accounts are suspended. ODJFS estimates that $189,184.62 was paid out in bogus claims because of this security event.
This past weekend, ODJFS emailed locked account users with instructions on how to authenticate their identity online and re-establish the link to their OH|ID by setting up 2-step verification and answering security challenge questions to regain access to their account.
Users who are still unable to recover their account or apply for benefits online, may call ODJFS at 1-877-644-6562. Individuals who believe they are victims of unemployment fraud may notify ODJFS online by visiting unemployment.ohio.gov. Click on the “Report Identity Theft/Fraud” button and follow the guidance for individuals.
Meanwhile, others have been locked out of receiving checks for a different reason.
Allie Sacharski of Amherst, an IT contractor, was laid off in May and started unemployment in June. Then the checks stopped.
"June 29th I got an email saying my payments were going to be stopped because I failed to attend an RESEA class that I was never notified about, did not get any correspondence and there's nothing saying that I was suppposed to attend a class," she said.
People are randomly chosen for the Re-Employment Services and Eligibility Assessment, or RESEA. It's designed to help spruce up resumes and help people be better candidates. Sacharski filled out the necessary paperwork, but then the checks stopped.
"I sat on hold that monday for six hours with unemployment and never got through and it hung up on me, tried again the next day, same deal it just kept telling me that they were experiencing high call volume and try again later, it doesn't even put you in hold anymore," she said.
She's called and emailed several state agencies looking for help and finally found a caseworker at Ohio Means Jobs. The caseworker told her she's not alone. A lot of people are dealing with the RESEA class issue.
3News reached out to ODJFS about this problem and are still waiting to hear if there's a solution.
Meanwhile, Sacharski is getting worried.
"We've already went through our entire savings to try and catch up on our bills," she said.
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