Many Holds On Legitimate Unemployment Claims To Be Lifted After Fraud Prevention Investigation

DENVER (CBS4)- One day after CBS4 reported on issues within the state's unemployment system that was stopping Colorado families from receiving desperately needed benefits, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment said, after an investigation into those holds, many will be lifted.

That includes David Turner, who CBS4 spoke with initially about the issues he experienced while filing for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance after work as handyman came to a stop.

"I have never been on unemployment my entire life," he told CBS4 Reporter Karen Morfitt.

After initial approval and even receiving some benefits, his claim was put on hold because of concerns about his identity, raising initial claims about the Colorado Labor Department's fraud prevention system that are now being addressed.

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"While on one hand it's catching fraud, on the other hand it might be catching legitimate claims which for some reason are caught up by the fraud triggers," Cher Havvind said.

Havvind is the spokesperson for CDLE and says investigators decided to take a closer look at why real claims were being flagged.

"It's over 5,000 of those that were held up in fraud holds that the teams are working through, and those payments and claims will start to be released in the next several weeks," she said.

While she says they would love to lift the 20 or more triggers they have in place to prevent fraud, it simply isn't possible. Their system has already stopped about $500 million from getting into the wrong hands.

"It's an unfortunate circumstance that we can't just pay every claim. If we paid everyone, we could be paying criminals," she said.