Bonnie Tom is newly married and excited for this next chapter in life.
She’s been saving money, maybe to buy a house, but the State of California recently snatched nearly everything she’d saved.
“I just want the best future for my spouse and I. And the fact someone could potentially take everything from me is super frightening,” she said.
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It started two years ago, when the state was doling out massive amounts of Employment Development Department benefits. A lot of that money – roughly $19 billion -- went to scammers who were stealing identities and filing bogus unemployment claims.
That’s what happened to Tom -- scammers filed claims using her name and got all the money. She was tipped off after receiving a letter in the mail from EDD verifying the change of address for her benefits. Tom said she filed a police report and reported the fraud to EDD several times.
“I just decided I need to do that to get evidence or proof to clear my name,” she said.
But it didn’t work. Recently, without warning, Tom said EDD took $24,000 out of her bank account, accusing her of filing fake EDD claims.
“I just felt hopeless. I just felt like there was nothing else I could do at this point because I went through so many steps to correct this. And no one’s tried to call me back or contacted me about this issue,” she said.
The I-Team reached out to EDD and it put all that money back in Tom’s account.
“I screamed!” Tom said.
The I-Team wanted to know if EDD had wrongfully taken money from the bank accounts of other Californians. But EDD told us it doesn’t have that data, or even if it did, it couldn’t provide it for privacy reasons. The agency did say it’s recovered roughly $6 billion in fraudulent benefits and hundreds of scammers have been convicted.
As for Tom’s case, EDD apologized for “any inconvenience” she experienced.
“The fact that they’re punishing the actual victim instead of going after the person who stole from the EDD to begin with, it just seems absurd to me,” she said.
