SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Some people have seen their unemployment benefits stop even though they qualify for more, and they can’t reach California Employment Development Department to find out the reason why.
“It's frustrating and it's pretty much a job trying to do this, and I don't know what's happening,” said chef Brandon Bollenbacher.
Bollenbacher received unemployment benefits after being seasonally laid off earlier this year. Those payments stopped unexpectedly, and he couldn’t continue a necessary step to keep getting payments.
His roadblock? He couldn’t ‘certify.’
“I checked the mail, I tried to certify online… but there’s some kind of block and no one to reach out to and see what happened,” said Bollenbacher.
People have to certify every two weeks in California to get their unemployment benefits for those weeks. Certification involves answering a series of questions to determine continued eligibility for benefits.
People won’t get paid until they certify, and failure to certify in a timely manner could result in the claim being closed, meaning it will need to be reopened or a new claim will need to be filed.
The process is rigorous, mandatory and sometimes overwhelming.
“You need to just take a deep breath and realize that it's going to take some time. It may not be as quick as you would like, but they will get back to you,” said Shaw Law Group president Jennifer Shaw.
Shaw recommends going online first to the Ask EDD website.
“I know it might feel like it goes into a black hole, but the folks we work with… most of them get a very quick response with Ask EDD,” said Shaw.
As for unemployment benefits, she recommends creating and logging into your EDD account on UI online to see what your file and status look like.
“We've seen a pretty radical turnaround in terms of accessibility and in terms of consumers being able to get the information they need,” said Shaw.
It’s important to remember no one size fits all. Bollenbacher says he couldn’t find answers to his situation online.
Shaw says with new funding and improved online systems, communicating with EDD has improved in the last few years and persistence pays off.
“Don't give up. That's your money,” she said.
Bollenbacher did eventually get a call back from EDD and was able to connect with a representative who told him there was a clerical error on his account with an old email. It was corrected, and he expects the payments to resume.
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