Rachel Lundgren is usually awake long before the Kansas Department of Labor call center opens.Five minutes before operators officially start accepting calls, she’s already dialing.“If you wait until eight o’clock,” she says, “It’s too late.”Lundgren’s bills are stacking up. She needs money.On a Friday morning call to the labor department, last month, she let KMBC 9 Investigates listen.“To speak with a call center representative…” the voice on the other end of the line said, “…you will need to call back later.”It was too late.She would have to try again tomorrow.“Your feedback is important to us,” the automated man reminded her.FEEDBACK, FRAUD, AND FRUSTRATIONLundgren has plenty to say about the Kansas Department of Labor’s handling of unemployment claims during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last April, a human resources manager at her Overland Park-based pharmaceuticals company surprised her with a phone call.Someone had filed an unemployment claim using Lundgren’s name. Her employer received the notice.She immediately knew it was a scam. She had worked for the company for 17 years. Most likely, someone overseas had found her name and social security number from an online data breach. The fraudster put Lundgren’s information into the labor department’s 4-decade-old state computer system and started a claim. For 11 months during the pandemic, the Kansas Department of Labor had no legitimate identity verification for its unemployment software.Scammers took advantage.Lundgren immediately reported her stolen identity to the labor department. “I did everything they asked me to do as far as going on their website, filling out the fraudulent form just with basic information,” she said. “But, I didn’t do anything else.”Fast forward to Dec. 31 when she lost her job. She had to file for unemployment for the first time in her life. There was already a “claim in progress,” the Kansas labor department’s website told her. It was the scam — forcing a hold on any more claims.“I’m stuck until I’m able to get that resolved with the Kansas Department of Labor,” she said. That was six weeks ago.[ READ FULL Q& A FROM KMBC 9 INVESTIGATES AND KDOL ]KMBC 9 INVESTIGATES RECEIVES MORE THAN 1,000 CONCERNS ABOUT KDOLLundgren filled out a recent survey from KMBC 9 Investigates asking for tips about the Kansas unemployment system. As of Tuesday, 1,065 others filled out the survey, too, with complaints about the Kansas Department of Labor.Three weeks after KMBC 9 emailed a KDOL spokesman about Lundgren’s case, a department fraud specialist called her to help.By then, she had spent weeks on the department’s jammed phone lines with no answers.KDOL leaders, by law, cannot comment about individual cases. Leaders received death threats, forcing them to cancel television interviews due to the nature of…
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