Maryland State Police Investigating After Man Is Mailed Fraudulent Unemployment Debit Cards
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- There is a record number of people filing for unemployment, and the number of scammers trying to take advantage of people in need is also spiking.
Maryland State Police are investigating one particular case involving a Baltimore man who never filed for unemployment, yet he got at least 23 fraudulent unemployment insurance debit cards.
Dr. Keenan Cofield said, about a month ago, he started getting packages with the cards inside.
The individual envelopes were addressed to different people, not him, and on the envelopes was a Maryland Department of Labor Licensing and Regulation return address.
"That really makes me cringe because it's like, 'Whoah, what happened? How can you allow this at this level?'" Cofield said.
If you combined all the cards, they're worth thousands of dollars.
Cofield said someone instructed him to withdraw the cash and he's supposed to give someone a cut. Instead, he turned the cards over to investigators.
Maryland State Police and the FBI have been warning of these types of scams where scammers steal identities to submit fraudulent unemployment claims and then use people as "money mules," trying to funnel the stolen money through them.