If you don’t have a job and receive unemployment benefits, you’re already struggling.
But things got worse for thousands of Ohio’s unemployed, who get very bad news when they log into their accounts on the Ohio Employment and Family Services website.
They are discovering they were overpaid and now they owe the state money.
State accidentally paid too much
Dave Pelfrey of Warren County has been out of a job since late 2019. He has received state and federal pandemic benefits in the intervening months.
But when he checked his account the other day, he said, “I received three notifications saying I owe them money, for almost a total of $ 5,000.”
Three notices said he had been “overpaid for reasons determined not to be fraud.”
In layman’s terms, the state of Ohio said, “Oops, our bad! We paid you too much.”
Pelfrey had received an overpayment of $ 1,800 in each case.
“Giving someone 45 days to pay back $ 5,000 when they have been unemployed in the past six months is a bit heartless.” he said.
As the initial wave of jobless claims subsides, states across the country are finding hundreds of thousands of unemployed people who have received too much money.
Michigan and Texas are two states that recently found that many people receive benefits they were not entitled to or continue to receive payments after they should have ended.
Ohio is now alerting 24,000 workers who received money they were not entitled to, and telling them that they are “required to immediately pay overpaid benefits.”
Pelfrey said it would have been one thing if the state had alerted him a couple of months ago that there was a problem with his presentation.
But he said that after all these weeks of sending him a check, now wanting to get it back is crazy. He said finding that money is impossible.
“If I have to contribute $ 5,000 in that period of time, in 45 days, it’s not there,” he said. “It’s flat, it’s not there.”
What you can do
We send your case to the state for review.
Kimberly Hall, director of Ohio Job and Family Services, says that if she finds out that she was overpaid, she can appeal the decision.
How did this happen? In some cases, your payment may have continued after your 26 weeks have ended. In other cases, the approved amount was too high, given your payment history.
But if you received too much money, state law says you must return it.
“Any overpayment must be paid, either for fraud or for lagged salary information,” Hall said.
You can return the amount in installments.
Pelfrey says that is not right.
“The companies I’ve been involved in, if we made a mistake that cost us money, we ate it,” he said. “We don’t go to our clients and say, ‘You owe us another $ 5,000.'”
After talking to us, Pelfrey finally received good news: Two of the three notices he received appear to have been duplicates.
That means you really only owe $ 1,800, not $ 5,000.
If this happens to you, file an appeal right away.
If that doesn’t get you anywhere, you can contact an employment attorney who can see if you have a valid case to keep benefits.
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