FLORIDA – Incarceration holds are being placed on thousands of unemployment benefit accounts even though the account owners were never behind bars.
Basically, the Florida DEO is accusing people of trying to collect money behind bars. That’s the only way someone is barred from collecting.
Even if a person has been jailed in the past they’re still entitled to unemployment.
One man said he was thrown off when he tried to log onto his account and saw that there was an incarceration hold placed on it.
He didn’t want to identify himself for fear it could make things worse although he had never spent time in jail.
“It’s frustrating to think I’m being treated like a criminal when I’m not a criminal,” the man said.
He said he believed it was yet another glitch affecting the DEO.
It’s a glitch also affecting Jessica Perdue who has tried to get it removed.
“Sometimes I want to cry at night time because it gets to me big time,” Perdue said.
She too is accused of collecting unemployment behind bars. Although far from it as she pointed to her newborn child at her side.
She admits though she did go to jail for a night in back in 2018.
However, Unemployment Advocate Vanessa Brito said that doesn’t matter. She pointed out that legally prior incarceration does not prevent someone from collecting unemployment.
“As long as they were not collecting unemployment when they were incarcerated that’s the end game,” Brito said.
Brito believes thousands have been affected and many have reached out to her for help.
“These are people’s lives and benefits,” she said.
The DEO however did not explain how they’re attempting to correct these matters.
So what caused this? The DEO was plagued with fraud back in January. In an effort to crack down on some of it they put a mechanism in place that blocked thousands of people it shouldn’t have.
In order to break free from the lock each case must be looked at manually which could take time.
If you have an incarceration hold on your DEO account here is a list of people you can email individually. They work with DEO and they can help:
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