According to The PA Department of Labor & Industry's anti-fraud division, they have "discovered recent attempts in which scammers are utilizing personal information to apply for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits. No L&I systems or data have been compromised. The personal information was obtained from sources outside L&I.
Scammers are using this information to file for PUA benefits and route the payments into their own bank accounts.
L&I will be sending additional information to all claimants in the PUA system via U.S. mail on Tuesday, May 26, to provide further guidance if they did not submit a PUA application."
Taxpayers should be aware that cashing checks for unemployment benefits they did not apply for may be deemed fraud and taxpayers will be required to repay these amounts to Pennsylvania.
Checks can be returned to:
Department of Treasury Comptroller’s Office
Attn: Mark Accorsi
Room 113, Finance Building
Harrisburg, PA 17120
For more information, visit https://www.uc.pa.gov/Fraud/Pages/default.aspx.
