A Rancho Cucamonga, California, couple who don’t qualify for unemployment benefits have received over 50 Employment Development Department (EDD) letters in the past four months.
Tom and Andrea Gray, a retired couple residing at their home in Rancho Cucamonga for more than 40 years, started receiving EDD letters at the beginning of the year. These letters pertain to different people, but they all have the same address—the Grays’ residence.
Andrea Gray told The Epoch Times that the letters she received have multiplied over the past few months and she has been seeking advice on how to handle these letters on the Nextdoor app.
“They used to come by two and three at a time, and then one time we got six, and they’ve been dribbling in for the last four to six months,” said Andrea.
On Sept. 13, the Grays received up to 16 EDD letters. Andrea says that she tried to return those letters to the EDD, but they keep coming back.
As the EDD is investigating unemployment benefits fraud, Andrea is worried that she will be getting into some trouble since her address has appeared on so many letters.
“We’re both retired; we don’t get unemployment benefits. So we’re not really sure how or why these people are using our address. I know there’s a lot of thought because I heard last year about all the inmates in the California prisons that were getting unemployment. That’s pretty odd,” said Andrea Gray.
Currently, those unopened letters have been marked “unknown” and were sent to postal inspectors for further investigation.
In a Sept. 10 statement, the EDD indicated that the department is dedicated to “aggressively fighting fraud” amid the pandemic. The EDD announced that they will enact a series of changes to speed up the reviewing process and prevent unemployment fraud.
In order to prevent perpetrators targeting earlier months, the EDD decided to stop its automatic backdating setting on Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). However, eligible claimants are encouraged to contact the EDD to backdate their PUA claim.
When an unusual number of people are using one address on file, the unemployment claim is most likely to be a fraud. The EDD has shut down many false claims in similar situations.
To prevent fraud, the EDD said it’s determined to limit multiple claims at the same address.
“While there are legitimate reasons for several workers using a single address, the EDD has shut down multiple claim situations following key identified patterns. These situations are believed to be fraud, and scammers will often try to intercept, redirect, or gather mail associated with these claims,” the EDD said in a statement.
The EDD recommends Californians send all fraudulent documents, including mail, to EDD investigators at EDD PO Box 826880, MIC 43, Sacramento, CA 94280-0225.
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