This bulletin is two years old but is still valid.
Buncom artists abound and they do not exempt the unemployment appeals process from their scamtastic ways. One scam is to present a bogus website as if it were an actual unemployment benefits application portal, with or without “disclaimer” at the bottom. DLLR cited the website “Unemployment Help Center” (no link as I don’t want to give buncombe artists any traffic) as a high-profile offender.
The full bulletin from 2011 is at http://www.dllr.state.md.us/whatsnews/uibogussite.shtml.
A question I have is whether there may actually be attorneys who are engaging in bunco. Attorneys have been known to set up fake “support groups” and “information centers” with poor or no disclosure of the law office backing of the site in matters such as mass chemical and asbestos tort claims and sexual assault lawsuits against cruise ship companies docking Florida. The small dollar amounts make me skeptical, but it could be happening somewhere.
