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Just checking back - did the weekly claim option appear for you yet? If not, I'd recommend trying both the phone approach and visiting a WorkSource center as others have suggested. Sometimes the in-person help can resolve these issues more quickly.
did u check your spam folder? my friend got his waiver response there not in regular email lol ESD is weird
One important thing to note - if you've been making regular weekly claims during this period, double-check that those aren't being applied to your overpayment balance automatically. Sometimes ESD will apply current benefits to past overpayments unless you specifically request they don't during the waiver process. This can happen even when collections are supposedly paused.
my cousin works at esd and says this happens ALL THE TIME. the base year thing confuses everyone. she says they get angry calls from employers like 'why am i getting charged when i didnt fire them???' all day long lol
Just to clarify for everyone in this thread: The UI tax charging system is based on an insurance model. Employers pay premiums (UI taxes) that go into a pool which funds benefits. When an employee becomes unemployed, the system looks back at who benefited from their labor during the base period (as evidenced by who paid their wages) rather than who caused the unemployment. In Washington, benefits are charged proportionally to all base year employers based on how much they paid you. So if 80% of your base year wages came from Employer A and 20% from Employer B, then Employer A would be charged for 80% of your benefits. Employers understand this is part of doing business, even if they sometimes get frustrated by it.
I'm on week 8 of waiting for BOTH of my pending issues to be resolved so consider yourself lucky that one went away already!!! This whole system is designed to make people give up. I've called 47 times in the past month. FORTY SEVEN TIMES. And not once has a human picked up. It's absolute garbage.
UPDATE: The second pending issue just disappeared this morning! Looks like they were processed about 3 days apart. No payments showing yet but hopefully they'll come through soon. Thanks everyone for the advice and sharing your experiences!
Zoe Papadakis
I experienced the exact same issue in February. After trying for days to get through, I finally used Claimyr (claimyr.com) and got connected to an ESD agent in about 15 minutes. The agent explained that my account had a technical flag that was limiting my phone options, but they fixed it immediately. They have a video that shows how it works: https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ?si=26TzE_zGms-DODN3. Definitely worth it when you're stuck with no other options.
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Yuki Yamamoto
•does this actually work? seems sketchy to me
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Ethan Brown
UPDATE: I finally got through! For anyone with the same problem - I called the 800-318-6022 number super early (7:58am) and just stayed silent through ALL the prompts. After about 2 minutes of various messages, it finally gave me the option to file my weekly claim. Thanks everyone for your help!
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AstroAdventurer
•Great to hear! Yes, calling right before they open at 8:00am is usually the best strategy. Also, for future reference, if you're having internet issues at home but have a smartphone, the eServices mobile site actually works quite well for filing weekly claims and uses very little data. It's more reliable than the phone system these days.
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Ethan Brown
•Thanks for the tip about the mobile site! I didn't realize it used less data - that's really helpful to know since I'm trying to conserve my phone data until next month.
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