What happens if you owe unemployment money to NYS Department of Labor?

When you owe money back to NYS Department of Labor, they can collect it several ways. They can offset your tax refunds, garnish wages up to 15%, or deduct from future unemployment benefits if you ever need to file again. You should have received appeal rights with that notice - you have 30 days to contest it if you believe it's wrong.

this happened to my brother last year!! they started taking money out of his paychecks automatically. he said it was like $200 every two weeks until he paid it all back

You can request a payment plan if you can't afford to pay it all at once. NYS Department of Labor will usually work with you on this. But definitely gather all your records from when you were claiming - bank statements, work contracts, anything showing what you earned and when. If you can prove you reported correctly, you might be able to get the overpayment reduced or eliminated.

I had such a hard time getting through to anyone at NYS Department of Labor when I had an overpayment issue. The phone lines are always busy and when you do get through, you're on hold forever. I ended up using this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that basically calls for you and gets you connected to an actual person. There's a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI that shows how it works. It was honestly a lifesaver because I needed to talk to someone about setting up my payment plan and couldn't waste days trying to get through.

The unemployment system is designed to screw over working people. They make it impossible to report income correctly then penalize you when their confusing system causes problems. Fight this as hard as you can because they count on people just giving up and paying money they don't actually owe.

agreed the whole system is a mess. but realistically if you did get paid while claiming benefits and didnt report it right they will get their money back one way or another

I went through something similar a couple years ago - owed about $1,500 in overpayment. The key thing is to act quickly since you still have time to appeal. Gather whatever documentation you have - even partial records are better than nothing. Bank deposits, PayPal records, email confirmations from clients, anything that shows when you actually received payment vs when you worked. The appeals process takes a while but it's worth it if you think there's an error. In my case, I was able to prove the timing was different than what they calculated and got the overpayment reduced by about 40%. Even if you can't eliminate it completely, you might be able to reduce the amount owed.

I'm dealing with a similar situation right now - got hit with an overpayment notice for $3,200. From what I've learned, the most important thing is to not ignore it. Even if you end up owing the money, they're much more willing to work with you on payment plans if you're proactive about contacting them. I'd definitely recommend appealing if you think there's any chance the calculation is wrong. The worst case is they uphold the decision, but at least you'll have tried. And yes, they can garnish wages and take tax refunds, but they usually give you a chance to set up a payment plan first if you reach out to them.