Scammers Targeting Unemployment Accounts Have Caused Lockouts and Delays on Payments, ODJFS Says

Disgruntled Ohioans relying on unemployment assistance have voiced their concerns on social media over the last week about irrititatingly long wait times and noted their online accounts have been “frozen,” meaning they have to contact ODJFS directly. Delays have led to stalled deposits in some cases.

Hackers were attempting to log in to accounts, and when successful, rerouting deposits, freelance writer Nina McCollum tweeted of her experience.

“I have been trying to resolve an issue with [ODJFS] for three weeks,” another wrote. “I have called multiple times. Today, I entered the queue at 8:02 a.m. After 2.5 hours, the call was disconnected. What is happening?”

In a statement, a representative from ODJFS denied any overall hack of the ODJFS system was to blame.

It “is not a breach of any system, but it is related to attempted fraud,” Bill Teets, a communications director for ODJFS, told Scene in an email Tuesday.

Teets added that there were an “increased number of attempts” to access the system, which has resulted in long lag times and account lock-outs, similar to what happened this spring.

“We have identified the issue, which involves criminals accessing an individual’s account using fake credentials,” Teets said, “and are working to address it.”

Similar issues happened during the pandemic when ODJFS again said there was no breach, though some Ohio lawmakers contested the claim.

Teets urged any ODJFS claimants blocked out of their accounts to call 866-576-0006, and go to unemployment.ohio.gov to report the incident. He did not give a date as to when the system would be functioning as usual.

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