The coronavirus scare has stopped nearly all business in the United States which has unfortunately left many people unemployed. As of April 2020, the unemployment rate in the United States dramatically increased to 14.7 percent. But thanks to the CARES ACT, our Federal government will be assisting those who are affected by the nationwide shutdown.
The program has been designed to provide up to thirty-nine weeks of benefits to those affected after January 27, 2020. Since then, many have utilized this program to protect their families from financial devastation, but so have scammers alike.
Many of your employees will need to apply for unemployment benefits because your business has had to temporarily close and you had to lay them off, but imagine applying for unemployment insurance and being denied because you were already receiving that benefit! A study has found that the personal information of nearly all American citizens, including their Social Security numbers, has been compromised at least four times on average. These past massive data breaches that have exposed citizens’ information have made it easy for criminals to file unemployment claims during this pandemic for anyone including those who truly need the assistance. The criminals direct the benefit payments to themselves, of course. The CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center has received more complaints in the first two weeks of May regarding unemployment benefits than in all of year 2019.
Currently, there aren’t many tools to help fight unemployment benefits identity theft, and contrary to popular belief, a credit freeze won’t stop it, and credit monitoring won’t catch it. As an employer, all that you can do is help your employees to understand that this is a crime that they need to vigilantly watch for because the process to get the benefits transferred to the right person after being fraudulently claimed is a long and arduous process in this time of need.
LibertyID is the leader in identity theft restoration, having restored the identities of tens of thousands of individuals without fail. If you retain personal information on your customers, now is the time to get data breach planning and a response program in place with our LibertyID for Small Business data breach preparation program. With LibertyID Enterprise you can now add value to existing products, services, or relationships by covering your customers, employees, or members with LibertyID’s fully managed identity theft restoration service—at a fraction of our retail price—with no enrollment and no file sharing. We have no direct communication with your group members–until they need us.
Call us now for a no obligation proposal at 844-411-LIBERTY (844-411-5423).