So, this one's a little bit important and I think you might want to read it. It's about an unemployment fraud of which I became a target and I have some advice on how to avoid it yourself.

With all the unemployment benefits floating around, fraud is rampant at the moment and the one that I just experienced involved someone filing a claim on my behalf. I am fortunate to have not been laid off during the pandemic.

...and I certainly didn't file a claim. I got a letter over the weekend telling me that http://FloridaJobs.org  received my claim but there was some sort of eligibility issue with it.

So, obviously, I called them. That was quite a shitshow between being connected to the wrong people, random hangups, going to voicemail boxes that are full. I was able to submit an online form and email to a fraud reporting address, but who knows?

Last night, I received a check. I spoke to our HR person and not only has she not received any notification of my claim (which is supposed to happen), but she didn't approve it either and yet...here's my check, ready to cash.

Upon further investigation, it seems I'm far from the only employee at my company who has had fraudulent claims submitted over the past month or so. Compromised credentials to our cloud-based HR software? Seems like a good bet.

The credentials have been changed, but it looks like there was some sort of breach and the personnel information from a number of our employees were compromised and used to create unemployment claims.

What I don't know is how the fraudster was looking to intercept the checks and cash them. That part seems like it would be fraught with peril for the fraudster, but I digress.

I'm not a long-thread kinda guy, so I'm going to cut this short. I wanted to make you aware of the fraud, tell you that a breach of your employer's HR software is not the only way this can happen, and let you know how you can make it much harder for the fraud to happen.

Even if you're gainfully employed, you can go on your state's unemployment benefit web site and create an account. Don't file a claim. Just create an account. This makes it much more difficult for a fraudster to create one on your behalf, maybe impossible.

When they go to create one on your behalf, the system should tell them that there's already an account for you and they'll probably move on to the next potential victim. Not foolproof, probably, but it likely can't hurt, right?

And now we move on to the next chapter...straightening out this mess and reporting all the fraudulent claims and getting them to stop sending checks. Should be fun. /X