Crime & Safety

Report: Rash Of Unemployment Claim Fraud Hits Pointes

Like other Detroit Metro towns including Troy and Royal Oak, The Pointes are experiencing an uptick in unemployment claims made by scammers.

It’s a common occurrence in police stations across the Detroit metroplex: someone comes in to report a fraudulent unemployment claim made in his or her name. In the Pointes, police are seeing this more and more, with some attributing the statewide uptick in fake claims to last year’s hack of the Equifax credit reporting service. Victims learn of the claims through current or former employers, report the fraud to police, and in report after report, none can say how the personal information was compromised.

According to a report published by the Grosse Pointe News, “a rash of identity theft and fraudulent claims of unemployment benefits has broken out in the Pointes the last few months and police officials only expect it to get worse.” Since Jan. 1, 2018, over 100 cases of unemployment claim fraud have been filed by Pointes residents. Forty of the reports were for the city of Grosse Pointe alone. Last year, the city received just 48 reports of fraud, and that was for all fraud, not simply identity theft.

“It is a huge epidemic in the state right now,” City and Park Director of Public Safety Stephen Poloni told the News. “Some people are speculating it is due to the (Equifax) breach,” Poloni added.

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Photo via Grosse Pointe Farms Police.

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