Alert: Unemployment Scam Affecting CC Employees

There is a widespread scam related to unemployment claims that is impacting many Colorado employers, including Colorado College. We do not believe there has been a data breach at CC. 

The scammers are filing fraudulent unemployment claims with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment using personal information. To date, we believe about 100 CC employees have been impacted. We are notifying active employees when we learn of a claim.  

We also received a general notice from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment that the state continues to see increased unemployment fraud activity, particularly with unemployment claims being filed in the names of active employees. In some cases, debit cards are issued, and separate PIN numbers are sent. You can learn more on the CDLE page on fraud prevention.

We even learned of one case where an employee received a telephone call from someone claiming to be with the Social Security Administration about a fraudulent claim report. You can see more information about potential Social Security scams through the Office of the Inspector General SSA news releases.

We, of course, complete a report to the state for every claim filed, and we provide information and indicate when employees are still employed. 

State of Colorado guidance is that, if you are a victim of unemployment fraud, you should submit a fraud report online. The site includes other important steps that victims of unemployment insurance (UI) fraud might consider and an infographic they provided is below.

You may also submit a case report on the CSPD website. If you have any trouble filing a police report you can reach out to our campus safety resource officer, Sid Santos (ssantos@coloradocollege.edu).

If you want to see if an email address has been compromised from a data breach, you can check https://haveibeenpwned.com to search personal and business email addresses.  If you are unclear about the results you receive from the email address checker, contact ITSSecurity@coloradocollege.edu.

The college does offer voluntary identity theft insurance as a benefit, although it will not cover an identity theft that occurred before you enrolled.   For more information on that product, visit: www.mybensite.com/coloradocollege and click on the “Additional Benefits” tab then the “Identity Theft Insurance” link.