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I will say if you think this is bad, you ought to read about Washington State’s loss of $650M to organized cyber crime: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new

I will say if you think this is bad, you ought to read about Washington State’s loss of $650M to organized cyber crime: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/auditor-state-unemployment-system-wholly-unprepared-for-fraud-one-agency-employee-under-criminal-investigation https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/auditor-state-unem...

walrus01 5y ago
I had never heard of this, and I'm a WA state taxpayer... so admittedly having only read the article, I'm familiar with the theory that there's a number of fraud organizations out there that were in possession of the most vital personal data (name/DOB/SSN) that submitted false claims in 2020 during the earliest stages of the covid19 response, and got payments redirected to money mule ACH deposit accounts. this happened in more locations than just WA. one of the sketchiest things you can find on the internet, if you take time to research it, is the number of scammers posting "job openings" for things like a "accounts processing executive" for full WFH jobs. a certain percentage of gullible or entry level people who are too naive to know better fall for it. the general concept is to create a legit US domestic bank account that can receive ACH transfers and then forward the money onward somewhere else. usually ending up in some form of overseas account or cryptocurrency from which it cannot be retrieved.
- octoberfranklin 5y ago
  I was furious when I heard of this back in 2020, and I'm a WA state taxpayer. The ESD Commissioner job was handed out as a political patronage gift. The person who was running the show has "failed upward" and is now in Washington DC. One-party government sucks. "Yeah but the other party is worse" is irrelevant. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/how-democratic-party-fundraiser-and-former-ambassador-suzi-levine-came-to-run-embattled-state-unemployment-system/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/how-democ...
  - dmoy 5y ago
    My own identity was stolen for this purpose, I had to submit a report to WA gov about the fraudulent claim submitted on my behalf
  - notreallyserio 5y ago
    It's absolutely relevant how much worse the other party is. If they weren't so hostile to government[0] and thus the people they might serve as a check on the party in power. I sincerely wish I had a choice in all elections, but sadly most of them are between someone that will probably be OK and someone that I fear will shoot up the capital if they don't get what they want. 0: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/20/790192972/washington-legislator-matt-shea-accused-of-domestic-terrorism-report-finds https://www.npr.org/2019/12/20/790192972/washington-legislat...
  - bliteben 5y ago
    Voting in Washington is really abhorrent. I read the last Republican Governor Nominee's bio and platform in the voting guide and was just surprised that he thought he was qualified to be Governor in a state with 7 million people. I don't really see why solid blue states or solid red states can not be an opportunity to innovate on platform and see what works, instead it seems qualified candidates just don't exist or give up
dataflow 5y ago
If you think that's bad: "California EDD admits paying as much as $31 billion in unemployment funds to criminals" https://abc7news.com/california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-scam-insurance/10011810/ https://abc7news.com/california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-sc...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- PeterisP 5y ago
  I'd bet that at least a significant part of that fraud went not simply to criminals but to some state-level activity. $31 B is so huge that it is meaningful at very high levels (e.g. it's much larger than all the assistance, goods, weapons and financing provided to support Ukraine in the ongoing war), and for places like North Korea fraud and hacking is a large part of their foreign currency income (technically speaking, that would probably count as "export of services").
- pjc50 5y ago
  That sounds so large it has to be overstated? I'm always a little suspicious of claims of benefit fraud that aren't backed up by court cases. They're very easy to inflate. Someone loses their job, fills in a form incorrectly, gets paid, the error is discovered a year later: was there really fraudulent intent, or is it just the combination of means-testing and the difficulty of discovering someone's true circumstances?
  - dataflow 5y ago
    I don't know the answer, but some more info here might be interesting: https://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/pdf/fraud-info-sheet.pdf https://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/pdf/fraud-info-sheet.pdf
  - dmurray 5y ago
    On the other hand, 10-20% of successful claims being fraudulent sounds plausible: I could easily see there being one successful scammer for every ten genuine applicants, and the scammer claiming 1-2x as much on average. The number is mostly so large because it's 10% of an even bigger number, the amount CA pays in unemployment claims, which is not in dispute.
craz8 5y ago
I too had my unemployment record hijacked and money transferred in the WA state attack The state sent out a letter pretty quick, and I filed to stop this within a few weeks. I have no idea how much was stolen with my name, or how much was recovered later At the time, I would prefer the state to err on the side of paying quickly for those suddenly out of work in a pandemic, but if the state paid almost $50m for a system to stop fraud that just didn’t work right, then perhaps a refund and legal recourse is in order.
- thrashh 5y ago
  I think the only (and easiest) way to fix this is with centralized government identity infrastructure. Right now every agency has to spend some of their budget to verify identity instead of relying on someone whose main job is that. But I think a lot of the US, myself included, opposes central identity. Therefore we are in our own self made hole.
  - landemva 5y ago
    We can fix this in decentralized manner, but we won't. Require signed application in front of notary. Lie to notary while presenting fake ID can bring real charges. There will be a few edge cases (disabled), though after a few prosecutions the fraud will mostly stop.
benatkin 5y ago
400000*(7600000/525010) -> 5790365.898 Accounting for population size, Washington State's loss is still more than a hundred times as big.
flippyhead 5y ago
The statement above left leaves out some important details when level-setting the just how bad it was in WA state: > All told, the imposter and fraud claims represented $646.8 million in misappropriated benefits. (Not all the imposter claims were paid; many were stopped by ESD before funds went out.) Of that, the state has recovered $370 million, the audit stated.

walrus01 5y ago

I had never heard of this, and I'm a WA state taxpayer... so admittedly having only read the article, I'm familiar with the theory that there's a number of fraud organizations out there that were in possession of the most vital personal data (name/DOB/SSN) that submitted false claims in 2020 during the earliest stages of the covid19 response, and got payments redirected to money mule ACH deposit accounts. this happened in more locations than just WA. one of the sketchiest things you can find on the internet, if you take time to research it, is the number of scammers posting "job openings" for things like a "accounts processing executive" for full WFH jobs. a certain percentage of gullible or entry level people who are too naive to know better fall for it. the general concept is to create a legit US domestic bank account that can receive ACH transfers and then forward the money onward somewhere else. usually ending up in some form of overseas account or cryptocurrency from which it cannot be retrieved.

octoberfranklin 5y ago
I was furious when I heard of this back in 2020, and I'm a WA state taxpayer. The ESD Commissioner job was handed out as a political patronage gift. The person who was running the show has "failed upward" and is now in Washington DC. One-party government sucks. "Yeah but the other party is worse" is irrelevant. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/how-democratic-party-fundraiser-and-former-ambassador-suzi-levine-came-to-run-embattled-state-unemployment-system/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/how-democ...
- dmoy 5y ago
  My own identity was stolen for this purpose, I had to submit a report to WA gov about the fraudulent claim submitted on my behalf
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  It's absolutely relevant how much worse the other party is. If they weren't so hostile to government[0] and thus the people they might serve as a check on the party in power. I sincerely wish I had a choice in all elections, but sadly most of them are between someone that will probably be OK and someone that I fear will shoot up the capital if they don't get what they want. 0: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/20/790192972/washington-legislator-matt-shea-accused-of-domestic-terrorism-report-finds https://www.npr.org/2019/12/20/790192972/washington-legislat...
- bliteben 5y ago
  Voting in Washington is really abhorrent. I read the last Republican Governor Nominee's bio and platform in the voting guide and was just surprised that he thought he was qualified to be Governor in a state with 7 million people. I don't really see why solid blue states or solid red states can not be an opportunity to innovate on platform and see what works, instead it seems qualified candidates just don't exist or give up

dataflow 5y ago

If you think that's bad: "California EDD admits paying as much as $31 billion in unemployment funds to criminals" https://abc7news.com/california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-scam-insurance/10011810/ https://abc7news.com/california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-sc...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
PeterisP 5y ago
I'd bet that at least a significant part of that fraud went not simply to criminals but to some state-level activity. $31 B is so huge that it is meaningful at very high levels (e.g. it's much larger than all the assistance, goods, weapons and financing provided to support Ukraine in the ongoing war), and for places like North Korea fraud and hacking is a large part of their foreign currency income (technically speaking, that would probably count as "export of services").
pjc50 5y ago
That sounds so large it has to be overstated? I'm always a little suspicious of claims of benefit fraud that aren't backed up by court cases. They're very easy to inflate. Someone loses their job, fills in a form incorrectly, gets paid, the error is discovered a year later: was there really fraudulent intent, or is it just the combination of means-testing and the difficulty of discovering someone's true circumstances?
- dataflow 5y ago
  I don't know the answer, but some more info here might be interesting: https://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/pdf/fraud-info-sheet.pdf https://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/pdf/fraud-info-sheet.pdf
- dmurray 5y ago
  On the other hand, 10-20% of successful claims being fraudulent sounds plausible: I could easily see there being one successful scammer for every ten genuine applicants, and the scammer claiming 1-2x as much on average. The number is mostly so large because it's 10% of an even bigger number, the amount CA pays in unemployment claims, which is not in dispute.

craz8 5y ago

I too had my unemployment record hijacked and money transferred in the WA state attack The state sent out a letter pretty quick, and I filed to stop this within a few weeks. I have no idea how much was stolen with my name, or how much was recovered later At the time, I would prefer the state to err on the side of paying quickly for those suddenly out of work in a pandemic, but if the state paid almost $50m for a system to stop fraud that just didn’t work right, then perhaps a refund and legal recourse is in order.

thrashh 5y ago
I think the only (and easiest) way to fix this is with centralized government identity infrastructure. Right now every agency has to spend some of their budget to verify identity instead of relying on someone whose main job is that. But I think a lot of the US, myself included, opposes central identity. Therefore we are in our own self made hole.
- landemva 5y ago
  We can fix this in decentralized manner, but we won't. Require signed application in front of notary. Lie to notary while presenting fake ID can bring real charges. There will be a few edge cases (disabled), though after a few prosecutions the fraud will mostly stop.

benatkin 5y ago

400000*(7600000/525010) -> 5790365.898 Accounting for population size, Washington State's loss is still more than a hundred times as big.

flippyhead 5y ago

The statement above left leaves out some important details when level-setting the just how bad it was in WA state: > All told, the imposter and fraud claims represented $646.8 million in misappropriated benefits. (Not all the imposter claims were paid; many were stopped by ESD before funds went out.) Of that, the state has recovered $370 million, the audit stated.