Unemployment Fraud Investigation Update

July 1, 2020 |

Earlier this week, the League was contacted by the U.S. Secret Service with a request concerning the state unemployment fraud investigation. To help the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) better track suspected unemployment fraud in SARs reports, financial institutions are being asked to do the following:

  • Fill out the subject field with only the account holder’s information. This includes: name; DOB; mailing address; phone #; email and SSN (if possible).
  • Use verbiage that states unemployment fraud is suspected. Using key terms helps the USAO search and locate SARs concerning this ongoing investigation.
  • To the extent possible, if your credit union has not done steps 1 and 2 in any SARs that have been recently filed, please consider resubmitting an amended SAR to include that missing information.

As a reminder, if your credit union sees something suspicious related to unemployment fraud, you can contact Tyler Martin with the Secret Service, at  Tyler.Martin@usss.dhs.gov. If you have questions or need additional assistance related to fraud, contact Ellen Parent, the League’s Legislative & Regulatory Advocacy Coordinator, at eparent@mainecul.org or Rebekah Higgins, Synergent’s Payment and Fraud Consultant, at rhiggins@synergentcorp.com.