Dear Michigan UIA: Maybe You Could Stop Making Fraud So Damn Easy?

Yet another Stupid Criminal busted for stealing over $700,000 from Michigan's Unemployment Insurance Agency. Stupid because he was dumb enough to post about it on social media.

The Detroit News:  Farmington Hills man who flaunted wealth sentenced in fraud scheme

Too bad he didn't claim the fraud was just reparations payments, maybe he would have walked then.

He apparently also had inside help at the Post Office for stealing mail and debit cards and then decided to go direct to UIA to ply his fraud directly.

The problem is Michigan's UIA among many other insanely open security holes, pays out benefits on debit cards - cards which are ridiculously easy to use without needing to show any identification and sent by mail apparently to any damn address a fraudster may desire.

At least with  a check or payments direct to a bank account there's at least some paper trail to ascertain the identity of the recipient and match the payment to the name of the actual recipient.   Not so much with a debit card.

UIA just doesn't seem to care much if it as an agency is enabling fraud by passing out debit cards to just about any claimant created online without even verifying their address and comparing it to wage reports of the actual worker.

That's hundreds of millions lost to fraud from the Unemployment Insurance Agency in Michigan alone, and over $300 Billion nationally in fraudulent UI payments - enough to send every American citizen a whole other payment of $1,400 or more and instead it went to fraudsters like this idiot and to scammers in Russia, China and Africa.

Quit making it so easy for criminals to commit this type of fraud.

More Unemployment Fraud Uncovered In Michigan

The Detroit News: Investigators: State worker got unemployment while still employed, hijacked other legitimate accounts

Federal authorities believe thousands of dollars in fraudulent pandemic unemployment assistance was processed through the scheme, including nearly $15,000 under Mims' own name and about $40,000 under the names of two legitimate claimants who knew nothing of the scheme.

Mims was collecting unemployment before she started working for the state in August, investigators said, but continued to collect it "while gainfully employed by the very agency responsible for administering the benefit."

Federal and state investigators began looking into Mims' activity in June and issued a search warrant on June 30 at a Birmingham home where they seized "significant evidence of UI fraud." At the time of the July 1 complaint, Mims was still employed by the agency. 

Fraud is always easier when it's an inside job.

The agency said Thursday that Mims is no longer employed by the state.

Well, that's a relief.  

One would hope she is not now collecting unemployment  .  .  .  .

In another case, using an insider yet again, criminals took Michigan's UIA for at least $2.5 Million.

The Detroit News: Detroit man pleads guilty in COVID-19 unemployment fraud scheme

Unemployment Fraud during Covid in the USA has been estimated to be between $63 billion dollars and $400 Billion Dollars - half of all UI money distributed.

$400 Billion dollars lost due to fraud and lack of adequate anti-fraud measures and indeed complete disregard for fraud prevention in an attempt to shovel money out into the economy with no accountability - with predictable results and it is pretty much assured no bureaucrats' head will roll for this massive malfeasance.

Let's put it this way - that $400 Billion fraudulently taken could have funded an entire new round of $1,400 checks going out to every legitimate American rather than to fraudsters.

What Good Is Reporting Unemployment Fraud if They Don't Act On It?

Back in June 2020 someone placed a false unemployment insurance request under Tash's name.  They got the home address right, but interestingly enough the fraudster changed her middle initial.

On June 6 we received a letter about the unemployment request from UIA asking for verification.  That very same day we reported it as identity theft to UIA on their online system for fraud reporting as she never has made an unemployment claim.

Nothing further came of it, until yesterday when we got another notice from UIA that her benefits are apparently being extended and she will now get even more unemployment money under the .

Again, she never applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, and we've never received any of the money, but it seems someone else sure has gotten it likely for over a year.

So let's see, UIA apparently ignored the need for a response to their verification of claim form, then they ignored the fraud report, and they still apparently seem to have allowed the false claim and are sending the funds off to somewhere.

Given the extensive fraud going on, including over $1 Million in false claims by a UIA state employee, and over 100,000 false claims one would think they would quickly handle a report of fraud, but apparently not.

Oh, and who is going to pay for this fraud - why the businesses that employ people in Michigan of course!

As seen on the UIA's website: 

The Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund balance is below $2.5 billion. As a result, the taxable wage base for the 2021 calendar year is $9,500 for all contributing employers. 

 (That's a nice increase of 5.55% in the base amount from last year).

Yep, a lot of that trust fund is being drained by this fraud and government inefficiency if not outright corruption.  So of course, businesses not responsible for the fraud (not to mention our Governor's lockdown policy that also led to massive unemployment) will now have to pay a higher rate to make up for it.

On top of it all, their fax number for reporting fraud is not working today.  Perfect. Just sent it in via their electronic reporting system, same as in June, but since that didn't get anywhere then, so I doubt this repeated fraud report will either.