NY unemployment payment card nightmare after address change - 4 months no money

i've been through this EXACT. SAME. HELL. took me almost 6 months to get my new card after moving from Brooklyn to Buffalo. The unemployment people blamed the bank, the bank blamed unemployment, nobody could tell me what was wrong with my docs. I literally sent my lease agreement, utility bills, updated drivers license - still got rejected multiple times. The only thing that finally worked was going IN PERSON to an unemployment office and making them call the card company while I was sitting there 😤

After weeks of getting nowhere with ny unemployment I tried this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that basically calls for you and gets an agent on the line. Talking to a real human got my card issue fixed in one call. It was the best money I've ever spent considering how much they were holding of mine! Check out this video if you're interested: https://youtu.be/Rdqa1gKtxuE

Classic NY unemployment nonsense. The left hand never knows what the right is doing. I'm convinced they make the process as frustrating as possible so people just give up and they don't have to pay claims. Had almost identical situation - the magic words that finally fixed it were "I want to file a formal complaint and get a supervisor's contact information" 🙄

Pro tip: call your state representative's office. I was stuck in this exact situation for 3 months, called my assemblymember's office, and they have special contacts at unemployment. My issue was resolved in 5 business days after 3+ months of nothing.

Did you upload your documents through the secure message center or through the document upload portal? Because they're COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SYSTEMS and the unemployment people will never tell you this! I had to upload mine through secure messages after the regular upload failed 3 times. Makes zero sense.

The bank that handles NY unemployment cards is THE WORST COMPANY ON EARTH. I've never dealt with more incompetent customer service in my life. After my 6th call trying to get a replacement card, I finally got someone who told me there was a "security flag" on my account that only unemployment could remove, but unemployment kept saying it was the bank's issue. I finally broke the cycle by filing a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against the bank. Like magic, got a call from a supervisor 2 days later and my card showed up a week after that. Look up "CFPB complaint" - it's free and it works when nothing else does.

have u tried sending document with bright red text saying "THIRD SUBMISSION - PLEASE ESCALATE TO SUPERVISOR" at the top of every page? worked for me when i was having same issue

I know it sounds crazy but try uploading in a different format. My PDFs kept getting rejected but when I converted everything to JPG it suddenly worked. The system is ancient and broken AF.

the ny unemployment system is a joke. they're literally sitting on millions of dollars of OUR MONEY and making it impossible to access. i've never seen so many hoops to jump through. had similar issues and found that sending physical mail (yes ACTUAL MAIL with tracking) to the Albany office sometimes works better than their "digital" system

Listen up because I work in a government office (not unemployment but similar systems). Here's what's happening and how to fix it for real: The NY unemployment database and the debit card system are run by completely different contractors who HATE each other and blame each other for everything. Your documents are probably stuck in digital limbo. Here's what will actually work: 1. Call early - like 7:59am exactly when they open. The wait is 1/3 as long as later in the day. 2. When you get someone, say EXACTLY this: "I need to speak with a tier 2 specialist about a DOCUMENT VERIFICATION ERROR CODE on my account that's preventing card issuance" - this specific phrase will get you transferred correctly. 3. If the first person tries to make you resubmit docs, insist on speaking to a supervisor about the "cross-system verification error" - they'll know what it means. 4. If all else fails, claimyr.com can get you past the phone tree hell. It's what my brother used after 3 weeks of failed calls. 5. As a last resort, file a written complaint with both the state labor department AND the state financial services department. Dual complaints trigger a mandatory review. Good luck - the system is designed to be difficult but these tricks should help.

Try calling on Wednesday between 2-4pm. Seriously. Thats when they have the most staff for some reason according to a friend who works there. Apparently thats when the overlap happens for shift changes. All other times you're just playin the lottery hoping to get through

ngl the whole "we need you to submit the same documents AGAIN" thing is 100% a delay tactic. they doing it on purpose to slow down how much they paying out. the more rounds of document submission = more people give up = more money they keep 🤷‍♀️

Whenever you upload documents to NY unemployment you NEED to follow up with a phone call to verify they received it. Their system doesn't actually notify anyone when new docs come in - a agent has to manually check. Been through this nightmare twice. Just use claimyr.com to get through to a human - once I actually talked to someone it was fixed in 10 minutes.