Getty The D.C. Department of Employment Services, which handles unemployment claims for D.C. residents, is seen in Washington, DC, July 16, 2020.
Videos are circulating on social media showing unemployment recipients who were asked to pay back the money they had received due to losing their jobs because of COVID-19. Later updates revealed that some people were able to fight back the demands and get them reversed, but it sometimes took months to resolve.
Videos Show People Being Asked to Repay Some of Their Pandemic Unemployment Funds
Videos reveal a number of people being asked to repay at least some of their unemployment benefits. These videos are circulating on social media in September 2021, although some of them date back to earlier in the year. One video from February 2021 that was shared on Twitter on September 6 quickly received more than 100,000 views.
The video’s caption reads: “Unemployment sent me a letter to pay back ALL of it. And had to do an appeal and they denied it.” TikTok user Sarah Moose said she couldn’t work because she was a hairstylist. She only got $10,000 in unemployment and received a letter asking her to pay back more than $4,600 of that, she shared.
Moose shared an update in July to the video saying she was ultimately told that she owed more than $15,000 back. She shared: “Today on July 7, 2021, after fighting for a total of nine months, it is 4:07 a.m. and it has officially been cleared. I do not owe the government $15,000.”
A number of additional videos are also circulating anew on Twitter and other social media sites.
On August 18, Abigail Zerbe shared that she was getting conflicting letters from Michigan about the $10,000 she received in pandemic unemployment assistance.
She wrote in the comments: “As far as I can tell, the agency itself made an error, and I was given more money than I was supposed to. … One of the letters stated at the end that I did not have to pay it back since it wasn’t my fault, but each letter went back and forth multiple times.”
Another commenter said that in Michigan, a lot of letters were sent out by mistake.
Kennedy Thurlow, also from Michigan, shared a video on August 19 with the caption: “When the government randomly decides one day they want their $17,000 back that they gave you.”
Here’s What Some People Did to Reverse the Refund Demands
In response to a question on how she got the refund demand reversed, Moose wrote on TikTok: “Go to your portal and fill out the waiver to try to get it cleared. That’s how I got it gone! It shows you financially can’t pay it.” She said it took nine months to resolve the issue.
She clarified that they asked for the money back because “they said I was working and collecting unemployment. I had previous employers write letters stating I was working with them, I had hearings, I wrote … appeal letters. And finally I filled out the waiver to clear it, and it got approved.”
On Abigail Zerbe’s TikTok video, one commenter said they had to go online and fill out the questions again about why they needed assistance, and that took care of the demands for repayment.
Some states have been asking recipients to repay unemployment when they make a mistake and overpay them. Last year, Bankrate advised that if this happens, you should first file an appeal or overpayment waiver in your state. The process differs from state to state, with some states requiring a hearing request and others requiring that recipients indicate they did not misrepresent their status. Some states also allow recipients to negotiate repayment plans.
In May, CNBC reported that some employees who were asked to repay their benefits are going to receive a refund that might take up to a year to issue. In Texas, 260,000 people received notices trying to reclaim overpayments, the outlet reported, but a December relief bill allows states to waive repayments and also issue refunds to workers who did repay.
The problem is still ongoing, however. Residents in Nebraska are still being asked to repay some overpaid benefits, the Omaha World-Herald reported in August. Some residents are reaching out to their local Legal Aid for help representing them as they request waivers so they don’t have to repay the state.
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