The Texas Workforce Commission has taken a variety of steps to identify and stop identity theft fraud. TWC has prevented payments to over 509,000 suspicious claimants, frequently before any benefits are paid out.
Identities are being stolen at record rates, some in breaches of health insurance companies, hotels and in one of the largest cases, a consumer credit reporting agency. The Insurance Information Institute reported that the number of identity theft complaints in America doubled in 2020. A growing cybercrime community on the Dark Web traffics these stolen identities.
From March 2020 to April 2021, TWC received applications from 4.48 million total claimants seeking UI benefits. During that time, 611,000 claimants were tagged as suspicious, with the majority being blocked before any benefits were paid out. In the last month, 94% of suspicious claims have been blocked before any benefits were paid.
All Texans should take steps to secure their identity online by practicing Internet security best practices. TWC accounts, and all accounts, should be treated like a bank account. TWC investigates every unemployment benefit claim to confirm identity and locks accounts that are fraudulent. The TWC fraud and identity theft portal can be found here.