Kendall County State’s Attorney urges Pritzker to take action to stop false jobless claims, ID thefts

Kendall County State’s Attorney Eric Weis is asking Gov. JB Pritzker to immediately review and take action to ensure that only legitimate unemployment claims are being processed by the state of Illinois.

In a Nov. 12 letter to the governor, Weis also asks that the hundreds of Kendall County residents and employers who have received fraudulent unemployment claims be able to promptly speak to a representatives of the Illinois Department of Employment Security, and that immediate action be taken to stop payment on each fraudulent claim “and correct the situation immediately without government red tape.”

Weis noted that over the past few weeks, his office has received notice of many fraudulent unemployment claims filed for current Kendall County government employees.

“Additionally, local law enforcement and my office combined have fielded over 100 calls from residents about fraudulent unemployment claims. Most, if not all, of the reports involve claims filed on behalf of a resident that is currently employed and has not requested unemployment. These residents are receiving notification of an unemployment claim filed in their name and are receiving benefits as a result.”

According to Weis, when the resident or employer has attempted to contact the IDES to report the fraudulent claim, they are either unable to speak with a live representative or are never given information on what should be done about the fraudulent claim.

“Given the number of cases we are aware of just in Kendall County, it is of great concern that there may be countless other individuals that are improperly receiving these benefits and are not reporting it to law enforcement or IDES,” Weis wrote.

The Kendall County Sheriff’s Office and Yorkville, Oswego and Plano police departments are among the Kendall County law enforcement agencies that took numerous reports over the past several weeks from residents who have had their personal information stolen for the purpose of filing fraudulent unemployment claims.

Yorkville Deputy Chief of Police Behr Pfizenmaier confirmed Nov. 4, that 37 cases of false filings of unemployment fraud had been reported to police in Yorkville since Oct. 1.

An additional case was reported to police Nov. 5, and two additional cases were reported to police Nov. 4 and 6, bringing the total to 40. Four separate reports of identity theft were reported Nov. 2, but reports did not specify if those reports were related to unemployment fraud.

Police find out about the reports in different ways, Pfizenmaier said.

“There’s different ways that our victims go about hearing it,” he said. “Sometimes they hear from their employer that a claim has been made of unemployment, which is fictitious, so sometimes the employer will catch it first.”

Some victims find out through the mail from the IDES, he said, calling these the two “most common” scenarios in which victims find out that their identity has been used.

Pfizenmaier advised victims of identity theft to notify their local police department, the IDES and their employer. He also encouraged victims to run a credit check through a certified credit union to determine whether or not their credit has been tampered with.