Scammers Get Huge Unemployment Haul

The Kansas Department of Labor has issued information on the number of fraud attempts, the estimated amount of fraud payments the agency has paid, and the number of law enforcement referrals.

Following an in-depth analysis, KDOL has determined that during 2020, about $140 million in fraudulent claim payments were made from the Kansas regular unemployment insurance program.

Additionally, more than $150 million in fraudulent payments are attributed to federal benefits programs, for a total of $290 million.

The total amount of potential fraud nationwide is roughly eleven percent of total unemployment insurance payouts since the start of the pandemic.

As part of the anti-fraud effort, the agency has referred over 50,300 cases of alleged fraud to federal law enforcement partners for investigation and possible criminal prosecution.

Earlier this month, KDOL implemented a new fraud mitigation software solution that has stopped more than 4.8 million bot attacks and fraudulent login attempts.