Local Unemployment Fraud Soaring

RiverCom dispatchers are receiving a steady pattern of calls reporting fraudulent unemployment insurance claims filed by using the victim's identity.

Chelan County Sheriff's Chief of Operations Jason Reinfeld didn't have statistics, but he looked at the 911 dispatch logs for the number of calls in a recent 4 day span "We had in excess of 40 fraud complaints and I compared that to the same time period last year when we only had two complaints" Reinfeld said.

There were 23 fraud/forgery calls on the RiverCom dispatch logs Friday, May 22nd reported to the Chelan and Douglas County Sheriff's Office and Wenatchee and East Wenatchee Police Departments.

You should also report fraud to the Employment Security Department at this link https://esd.wa.gov/unemployment/unemployment-benefits-fraud

The Washington Employment Security Department says the state has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in unemployment fraud. Commissioner Suzi LeVine says it is believed scammers based in Nigeria are responsible and state and law enforcement officials were working to recover as much of the money as possible.