Over the past few weeks we’ve taken several reports from multiple people who have received unemployment benefits even though they never applied for them.
Scammers are applying for the IDES benefits and seem to be using personal information from victims obtained from phishing scams or previous unrelated data breaches. Sometimes the payments are sent to the real person’s account instead of the scammer and the scammers call, text or email trying to get the victim to send some or all of the money to them. They may even say they are from the state unemployment agency and that the money was sent by mistake.
Some of the fictions debit cards, when activated, are directly deposited into a fraudulent account.
People who receive a debit card in the mail they didn’t apply for should do the following:
• Don’t activate the card
• Contact the bank and report fraud
• Report it as fraud to IDES
• Freeze their credit report
• Check their bank balances online
• File a police report
Free credit reports are being made available at :
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action
People who believe they are a victim of this fraud should contact their local police department or IDES at 312-793-3200.
