Ohio offers credit monitoring to unemployment fraud victims

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- More than 400,000 people who reported falling victim to unemployment-related identify theft are set to receive a year of free credit monitoring from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

With the influx of unemployment claims during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ODJFS identified about $496 million worth of fraudulent overpayments, largely due to theft of personal information, according to a news release Tuesday.

"The unprecedented amount of claims filed and benefits distributed as a result of the pandemic unfortunately resulted in equally unprecedented fraud across the nation,” ODJFS Director Matt Damschroder said. “While we have no evidence any ODJFS system was breached, we are in a unique position to help those who were victimized by providing them with credit-monitoring tools."

Through a partnership with IDX, the ODJFS said it will allocate between $588,000 and $748,000 toward credit monitoring -- which will provide identify-theft monitoring and restoration, and insurance services -- with the final cost based on how many enroll.

The credit-monitoring program will join a slew of fraud-prevention efforts implemented by the ODJFS, including a fraud dashboard and multi-factor authentication.

Since the start of the pandemic, the ODJFS said it has distributed about $24 billion to 2.4 million people who filed claims, including gig-workers eligible for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and those eligible for traditional employment.

For those seeking to report unemployment-related identity theft, visit unemployment.ohio.gov or call 833-658-0394.