Nevada cracking down on over 200K potentially fraudulent PUA claims

Applicants for hundreds of thousands of unemployment benefit claims filed through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program will soon receive ineligibility letters.

The state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation said Thursday that nearly 217,500 PUA ineligibility claim determinations will be sent out after it identified “a large number of questionable claims.”

The PUA program, aimed at self-employed workers or independent contractors, provides up to 46 weeks of benefits for eligible filers. More than 483,000 PUA initial claims have been filed in Nevada through the week ending Oct. 3.

“Staff have been working to verify the identity of PUA claimants,” DETR said in a statement. “If identity cannot be validated, these cases have been determined to be ineligible for benefits.”

DETR officials said the state unemployment system is overwhelmed with fraud as it struggles to clear the backlog on legitimate claims. In late August, the agency piloted a program with identity verification platform ID.me to root out fraudulent applications.

DETR said that in each case the filer either did not follow through with an ID.me request for information or the claim was flagged for “questionable identity.”

To address fraud within PUA, the state unemployment agency said it flagged and reviewed questionable claims.

Individuals affected can appeal the ineligible determination. DETR said it will waive its 11-day deadline for filers to request an appeal “due to the significant number of potential fraud claims.”

DETR’s decision to send a wave of ineligibility letters to PUA applicants comes the same day that federal prosecutors in Nevada announced they will prioritize prosecution of unemployment fraud committed against the state workforce agency.

Contact Jonathan Ng at jng@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ByJonathanNg on Twitter.