Have you tried contacting your state representative? I was stuck in a similar situation for weeks and nothing worked until I reached out to my district rep. Their office has special contacts at ESD and got my issue resolved in 3 days after I'd been waiting for months. Just Google "[your county] state representative" and reach out to their constituent services.

UPDATE: I just got paid!!! All 9 weeks came through at once! I used the Claimyr service that someone mentioned above to finally reach an agent this morning. Turns out there was a "system flag" on my account because I had two employers in my base year and one of them hadn't responded. The ESD agent manually overrode it since the appeal period had passed. She said the money should be in my account in 48 hours, but it actually showed up just 3 hours later! SUCH a relief. Thanks everyone for your help!

My brother works for a restaurant and had same problm with tips getting stolen but he just quit instead of getting fired. ESD denied him because quitting is different I guess? So maybe youre in a better position since they fired you. But I think its crazy how long they make people wait while bills still need to be paid! The whole system is messed up if you ask me.

Has ANYONE from ESD actually contacted you yet for your side of the story??? I'm on week 6 now of adjudication and literally no one has called me or sent me any messages asking for my version of events. How are they even making decisions if they don't talk to both sides?!?

To properly address your overpayment and protect your tax refund, follow these steps: 1. Log into your eServices account at secure.esd.wa.gov 2. Navigate to the "Overpayment" section 3. Select "Set up payment plan" 4. Choose a monthly amount you can afford (even $20-30/month is acceptable) 5. Make sure you make the first payment immediately As long as you have an active payment plan and are making payments, ESD won't refer your debt to collections or the Treasury Offset Program. The key is taking action before the 30-day response window expires. Also, check if the overpayment is classified as "fraudulent" or "non-fraudulent" - if it's just a simple reporting error, it should be non-fraudulent which gives you more flexible repayment options.

Make sure to keep all documentation too! I had a payment plan that somehow got "lost" in their system and they still tried to take my refund even though I had been making payments. I had to send them copies of my bank statements showing the payments to get it straightened out. Their record-keeping isn't always great.

I went through the EXACT same thing in July. Claim stuck for almost 7 weeks. What finally worked was contacting my state representative (like someone else mentioned). But what I learned afterward was that my claim was flagged for identity verification and they never sent me the notice! So check your spam folder AND your physical mail. Sometimes they send letters but not notices in the portal. So frustrating. Hang in there.

Just checking back - any updates? Were you able to reach anyone at ESD or get help from your legislators?

UPDATE: Finally managed to speak with an ESD agent! Turns out this was exactly what someone mentioned above - they were counting my final paycheck + vacation payout as "unreported earnings" even though I DID report it. The agent found my original reports and has submitted a correction to remove the overpayment completely. She said the system sometimes flags these automatically during audits and human review is needed to fix it. Such a relief! She also said they're sending these waiver emails proactively when their system detects possible errors like this. Thanks everyone for the help and advice!

This happened to my cousin too! He never even knew about an overpayment until he got the waiver email. Turns out they had him confused with someone with a similar name. The whole system is such a mess these days.