EDD v. Sunnybunny... guess who's winning!

So, in case you've been keeping score and hedging your bets in my direction, I have some rather glum sporting news for you. I don't seem to have much chance of winning when it comes to getting my unemployment benefits. Like... at all.

If you've been having trouble keeping up with this debacle, here's the tally:

Contract ended September 28, 2007 (EDD has it listed as 9/23)
Filed for unemployment benefits at approx Midnight on 9/28/07.

Following week letters arrive:
We cannot confim your identity, please send or fax the following documents
We must have a face to face meeting with you, please come to the office on October 11th at 10 AM.

The day of my appointment the following letter arrives:
We have recently discovered that we overpaid you the last week of your
previous claim (the first week I worked in my previous contract). Why did we do that? Explain yourself.

The documents you sent that we asked for, to confirm your identity, were unclear. Please resend them.

At my appointment, where I showed no less than three people my passport along with my live body and face, I learn that these people cannot confirm my identity to the EDD and then was urged to lie about not knowing PowerPoint in order to get training.

My first benefit claim form arrives on the same day.

I mail in my guess as to what may have happened to cause an overpayment the following day, not having recalled an overpayment (I assure you I'd have remembered!)or what I might have done to cause one since it had been eight months since I filled out the form in question.

I receive a letter the following week, instead of a check:
We have disqualified you based on the fact that we could not prove your
identity. Please call if you wish to reopen your claim.

I call and explain that I have not only faxed the documents three times, but sent clear, enlarged color copies of the documents they requested and that there should be no earthly reason why they wouldn't know I was me, particularly considering they didn't question my identity when asking for money back they think they overpaid me.

I luck out and get a kind agent on the phone who gives me her personal fax number. I fax it over, she walked it to her boss, and I was off and running.

November 14, 2007, I receive my first checks. Six weeks after I opened my claim.

I receive a tip from my apartment manager that management is cracking down on late rent, and as I had been living in my apartment for seven years, were particularly anxious to see me move out so they could raise the rent. Having been threatened with eviction the last time the EDD was bumbling my account, I have no choice but to move.

By this time, I have had to borrow over 1K from a kind friend who had just loaned me 1300 in order to go to baking school, and had to use all of it to keep afloat as the initial checks barely covered the late fees and overage charges I incurred (much less rent for two months) while waiting for them to figure out I am me.

November 28, I begin moving the four blocks to the shared condo I now reside in. I cannot afford a truck for the whole move, so I hire movers for the big stuff and move the rest in my car. Movers put a 300 dollar hold on my account for a 200 move. Monthly charges go through. Overage fees abound. I am exhausted and overwhelmed with the move and come home to my new place to find a letter from the EDD.

We believe you deliberately falsified your benefit claim form on the last week of your previous claim. We are docking you five weeks of benefits. You may appeal if you wish.

I finish moving on the 3rd (there's 150 off of my deposit that I would have gotten back), scramble to find the money to pay the move in deposit and formulate my appeal. By this time I am up to over 240 in overages alone.

Appeal is mailed on December 7 and faxed on the 10th.

Appeal court receives paperwork from EDD on December 27th.

Several potential temp positions are snatched out from under my due to the writer's strike. Suddenly everyone needs a secretary with a Bachelor's degree, preferably in Business or Literature.

January 5, 2008 finally arrives, signaling the end of the first week since November 26th, that I qualify for benefits. I send my benefit claim form in promptly on January 6th, as instructed. I am now borrowing from strangers, and vomiting Ramen in the middle of the night in stress.

January 11, 2008 Check information hotline says the check is in the mail. HOORAY!

January 28, 2008 After trying literally hundreds and hundreds of times to get someone on the phone, I finally go down to the EDD to see what the hold up is. Am turned away as there is no parking and the line to use the "Magic Red Phones" - that put you through to an agent quicker (but not immediately, you still have to do the hang up and redial over and over) is too long.

January 29, 2008 Back to the EDD to use the phone. Am told "stop check" form and next claim forms are in the mail that day (never to be received) and assured that if I can prove I will be evicted, that they will expedite my claim form.

January 31, 2008 I finally receive my January 11th $450 check, along with a good deal of mail I had been wondering about, including my appeal hearing date scheduled for the following Monday (see USPS v. Sunnybunny posts). Have to go back to magic phones to inform EDD that I have cashed the check (as instructed previously) and learn that there is absolutely no expediting process for claim forms. None, whatsoever. Impossible. Agent tries to help by sending the claim form that should be attached to the next check immediately, so I may catch up.

Same day I go to the USPS to have words over why I wasn't getting my mail. Abnormally apologetic for botching my life, they overnight my claim form for free. Next check for $900 (700 of which will go to rent) arrives on the following Tuesday. The form the helpful agent sent, arrives the next day.

February 11th, instead of a check, I receive a fresh claim form for the weeks I should have been paid for, stating that I had forgotten to fill out employer information. I get the "guilty" verdict from the appeals court the same day (which does not shock me as the judge had clearly made up his mind well before I had arrived). I fill it back out and send it in immediately.

February 15th I manage to get a hold of an agent who claims they had not received the replacement form but corrected what I sent based on my response and that the check would be in the mail on Saturday.

February 16th, called check information hotline at 6 AM. "Your last check was paid on February 2nd. Check information will be updated again on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008."

Naturally, there is no chance of getting a hold of a human right after a three day weekend. No chance in hell. But I try anyway. After doing some cash work for a friend, in hopes to stay afloat (and he skips out before paying me), a friend takes me to dinner. At the end I see that I have a text message from my roommate "You have mail from the EDD!"

I call and ask if it's a check, she doesn't know. I said, "It'll have some color on it, like it would BE a check." "oh no," she says. "It just looks plain white."

Not

Good

News

I get home a half an hour later to find... that's right... the SAME benefit claim form, for the two weeks ending FEBRUARY 2ND!
You marked yes and no for the same question. Please fill this out and send it in.

Imposible. This time I had a witness. I had my friend CB actually look at the form before I sent it (not having access to a copier).

Did you tally up how many checks I received in all that time? Were you paying close attention?

I wouldn't blame you if you didn't and just skipped to the end. As my roommate and I agreed, if we weren't seeing this unfold before our eyes, we would not believe such a story. Nobody could befall that much trauma, that much strife from one agency, could they?

Yes. Yes, they can and do. I'm lucky I still have a place to live and that is due to my friends. As always... you keep me sane when little else can.