ESD claims retirement payments were accounted for but now demanding overpayment refund - HELP!

Unfortunately, this is pretty common with ESD. They make these kinds of mistakes ALL the time. You need to appeal this decision within 30 days of the notice date. Make sure you include copies of ALL your email correspondence showing you disclosed the retirement income. Also include a copy of his original application showing the pension was reported. The appeal process isn't complicated, but it can be slow. You'll need to fill out their appeal form (should be included with the notice or available online) and submit it along with your evidence. Eventually, you'll have a hearing with an Administrative Law Judge from the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). They're separate from ESD and generally pretty fair.

exact same thing happnd to me last year!!! they said i owed $6900 becuz of my 401k paymtns even tho i told them about it from DAY ONE. so messed up

This happened to my neighbor and it took him EIGHT MONTHS to get it resolved!!! ESD is the WORST agency in the state!! They mess up constantly and then blame the claimant. I'd bet money that one adjudicator properly noted the retirement in their system but another one didn't see it or ignored it. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing over there. Hope your dad isn't in a tough financial situation because ESD will try to recoup that money while you're appealing. GOOD LUCK!!!

I work with unemployment cases frequently, and this is unfortunately a common issue with pension and retirement income. Here's what you need to know: 1. The law does require certain retirement income to be deducted from unemployment benefits, but only if the pension comes from a base period employer (generally the most recent 12-18 months). 2. If your father properly reported his retirement income and ESD confirmed multiple times they had accounted for it, you have a strong case for waiver of the overpayment based on agency error. 3. Continue filing weekly claims during the appeal process even if benefits are reduced or stopped. 4. Request a formal hearing - this will go to the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) where an independent judge will review your case. 5. Organize your evidence chronologically: - Original application showing pension disclosure - All email communications confirming ESD knew about the pension - All benefit payment records - The overpayment notice itself This should be resolvable without an attorney, but it will require persistence.

I successfully fought an ESD overpayment claim last year after months of frustration trying to reach them. What finally worked was using Claimyr to get through to an actual ESD agent. It's a service that basically calls ESD for you and gets you in the queue without you having to spend hours redialing. I was skeptical but watched their demo video (https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ?si=26TzE_zGms-DODN3) and decided to try it. Got through to ESD in about 25 minutes instead of spending days trying. The agent was able to put notes directly in my file which helped my case tremendously. Just go to claimyr.com if you're interested. Seriously worth it for complicated cases like yours where you need to actually speak to someone with authority.

OMG THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW TO MY AUNT TOO!! She's 71 and gets both Social Security and a small teacher's pension. She worked part-time at a grocery store until they cut her hours to nothing in December. ESD has been sending her benefits since January, then suddenly last week - BOOM - overpayment notice for $5,200!!! They're saying she didn't report her retirement income which is COMPLETE BS because we filled out the forms together and triple-checked everything. I'm so mad I can't even see straight. How is an elderly person supposed to suddenly come up with thousands of dollars because some government worker can't do their job right????

wait did the notice say why they think he didnt report it? is it possible they lost the info or someone deleted it from their system? id be printing out EVERY email right now and start building a paper file. their system is garbage

Quick update on your pension question - I want to clarify something important. In Washington state, pension income generally only affects UI benefits if: 1. The pension is from a base period employer (which yours is not), AND 2. The base period employer contributed to or maintained the pension plan (again, not applicable in your case) Given your father's pension is from employment that ended years ago with a different employer than his most recent one, I'm even more confident this overpayment notice is in error. This is clearly spelled out in RCW 50.04.323 if you want to reference the exact law in your appeal.

one more thing to think about: make sure ur dad keeps filing his weekly claims during the whole appeal process even if they stop paying him!!! if he stops filing and then wins the appeal later he might not get back pay for the weeks he didn't claim. learned this the hard way :