Colorado labor department reveals reasons for "frustrating" shortfalls, as hundreds still wait for unemployment money

Hundreds of Coloradans are still waiting to receive the unemployment money they're rightfully owed, because the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment says it's still working to clear fraud holds on their accounts, and to add insult to injury, claimants say they can't get adequate help from the department's customer service lines.

Now, CBS News Colorado is getting more insight about insufficiencies at the department that have led to the hold ups and poor customer service assistance.

"I feel pretty powerless": Claimants continue to struggle with no help or answers from CDLE

"It's been really frustrating," says unemployment claimant Henry Fortier. "I feel like to feel like you're following all the steps to be paying into a system like this through tax dollars, and then to not see the system work is super disheartening... It feels pretty unfair, and I feel pretty powerless."

Fortier has been waiting on his unemployment check for almost a year. After he was laid off in October last year, he says a customer service agent with CDLE told him not to finish his unemployment application until he had received his severance package from his company. 

Once he received the severance money at the end of the year, he applied for unemployment, but he says a different CDLE customer service agent later told him that because he had only partially filled out his application before, his account was flagged for fraud. 

So, Fortier verified his identity three different times, but still, no money came. 

He says he called customer service over 100 times this year, and only got through to a real human three times, usually after waiting on hold for over an hour. 

"Ninety-nine percent of the time I get an automated message saying I will not be able to transfer to a live person," Fortier said. 

He says even when he has talked to a real person, the customer service reps aren't able to clear the fraud hold over the phone. 

Vanessa Quilantan said she faced similar problems with her unemployment claim, that one customer service agent even told her she would have better luck speaking with the media for help. 

"Directly told me you should really try reaching out to your local news stations, and local press and media to try and get the ball rolling on your claim.... like I was living in the twilight zone, it was shocking," Quilantan said. 

Quilantan had to move home to Texas because of the dysfunction, saying she couldn't afford to live in Colorado any longer. 

"Twelve weeks without income," she said. "I was about to lose my home, and I was desperate."

Lack of qualified staffing one potential reason for holds clearing at glacial pace

CBS News Colorado pressed the unemployment department for answers. 

Turns out, CDLE says there are only 40 people in the department who are allowed to clear fraud holds, and clearing the holds isn't even their primary duty, the department says they have other tasks to handle, as well.

But CDLE says it has just hired 10 more people, whose primary job will be to clear the fraud holds that still remain for hundreds of Coloradans.

And here's why waits are so long to talk to a real person for help:

The CDLE says there are 110 customer service agents to help all the claimants, people struggling to get paid.

Eighty of them are in-house reps who are given 16 weeks of training. Thirty more work for a third party contractor, and only have two weeks of training on "minimal info," according to CDLE. 

CBS News Colorado also asked why customer service agents can't clear fraud holds themselves. 

A spokesperson for the department says: 

"Our call center representatives are in fact receiving additional training and new guidelines to quickly identify program integrity (PI) holds and send them to newly trained workers for review. We anticipate most pi issues to be cleared within a week of claimants contacting us unless there are risk factors that require additional investigation. These recent adjustments are rebalancing and stabilizing the system to work as originally anticipated, allowing us to stop identity theft claims in their tracks while trying to minimize the impact to innocent victims of identity theft."

"We will be asking questions": Legislators taking a closer look at CDLE operations

While the department says it's stabilizing following tens of thousands of fraud holds this summer, some state legislators tell me that needs to be verified. 

"We have been putting pressure on the department to do a better job to process claims more quickly," says Representative Judy Amabile, who is the chair of the labor affairs oversight committee in the Colorado General Assembly. "We have given the department resources."

She says one potential fix would be to provide more funding to the department in the new state budget.

She also plans to investigate the labor department's unemployment division at the start of the next legislative session. 

"In January, we'll be having our SMART Act hearings, and we will definitely be talking to the Department of Labor and Employment, and we will be asking questions about what's happening, and looking for answers, and understanding what solutions they're bringing to address the problem," Amabile said. 

Meanwhile, some claimants feel the department should be put under the microscope much sooner. 

"I would just implore Colorado officials to stop cutting their citizens off at the knees," Quilantan said. 

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment would not agree to an interview about these issues, but sent this written statement:

"We want to reiterate that this is a no-win situation. We will never have zero fraud holds on claims as new ones are set every day. We have an obligation to protect the UI trust fund from criminal activity, and we are dedicated to balancing that with providing a seamless claimant experience for all the Coloradans we serve."

Meanwhile, if you're struggling to get paid, Representative Amabile urges you to please reach out to your local state representative for more help. 

She says it's their job as legislators to step in for issues like these.