Why hasn't Washington ESD unemployment paid me after 6 weeks of filing?
Filed my initial claim back in early December and have been doing my weekly claims religiously every Sunday. My claim shows as 'active' on my SecureAccess Washington account but I haven't received a single payment yet. No pending issues showing, no adjudication notice, nothing. Just radio silence from Washington ESD for 6 weeks now. I've burned through my savings and I'm getting desperate. Has anyone else experienced this kind of delay where everything looks fine on your end but no payments come through? What am I missing here?
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Sophia Clark
Check your correspondence tab in SAW - sometimes there are requests for info that don't show up as pending issues but will hold up payments until you respond
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Ryan Young
•Just checked and there's nothing there. It's completely empty which seems weird?
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Katherine Harris
•That is weird. Usually there's at least your initial determination letter in there.
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Madison Allen
omg same thing happened to me last year! turns out my employer contested my claim and i had no idea because the notice got lost in the mail or something
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Ryan Young
•How did you find out about the contest? Did Washington ESD eventually tell you?
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Madison Allen
•only when i finally got through on the phone after like 100 tries. they said it had been in adjudication for weeks
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Joshua Wood
You absolutely need to call Washington ESD directly. Something is clearly wrong with your claim if you're not seeing any correspondence and no payments after 6 weeks. The standard processing time is 2-3 weeks max for straightforward claims.
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Ryan Young
•I've been trying to call for weeks! The phone lines are always busy or I get disconnected after being on hold for hours.
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Justin Evans
•Have you tried calling right at 8am when they open? That's usually the best time to get through.
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Ryan Young
•Yeah tried that too. Still can't get through. It's like they don't want people to actually reach them.
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Emily Parker
I had the exact same problem and found this service called Claimyr that actually got me through to a Washington ESD agent. They have some kind of callback system that keeps trying for you. Check out claimyr.com - there's a demo video at https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ that shows how it works. Saved me hours of frustration.
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Ezra Collins
•How much does something like that cost? I'm already broke from not getting paid.
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Emily Parker
•It was totally worth it to finally talk to someone who could see what was wrong with my claim. Way better than wasting entire days trying to call myself.
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Victoria Scott
•Never heard of this but honestly might be worth trying. I've wasted so much time on hold with Washington ESD.
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Katherine Harris
Check if your bank account info is correct in your profile. I've seen cases where payments were being sent to old account numbers and people didn't realize it.
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Ryan Young
•Bank info is definitely correct. I double checked that multiple times thinking the same thing.
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Benjamin Johnson
•What about your address? If they're trying to mail you a debit card and your address is wrong...
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Ryan Young
•Address is right too. I made sure everything was accurate when I filed.
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Zara Perez
This is exactly why the unemployment system is broken. Six weeks with no payment and no explanation? Meanwhile people are losing their homes and can't feed their families. Washington ESD needs to get their act together!
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Daniel Rogers
•Seriously! The system worked fine before COVID but now it's like they can't handle normal claim volume.
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Aaliyah Reed
•At least during the pandemic they had extra staff. Now it's back to skeleton crew handling thousands of claims.
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Ella Russell
Have you tried the live chat feature on the Washington ESD website? Sometimes that's faster than calling.
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Ryan Young
•Didn't know there was a live chat! Where do you find that on their site?
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Ella Russell
•I think it's only available during certain hours and it fills up fast. Look for a chat icon on the main ESD page.
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Joshua Wood
•The chat is mainly for technical issues with the website, not claim-specific problems. You'll still need to call for payment issues.
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Mohammed Khan
Did you work in multiple states in the past 18 months? Sometimes that can cause delays if they need to coordinate with other state agencies.
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Ryan Young
•Nope, only worked in Washington. Same employer for 3 years before I got laid off.
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Mohammed Khan
•Then it's probably an employer contest or some kind of verification issue. Definitely need to get Washington ESD on the phone.
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Gavin King
Make sure you're not missing any work search requirements. If you're not logging job searches properly it can hold up payments even if it doesn't show as a pending issue.
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Ryan Young
•I've been doing my job searches and logging them in WorkSourceWA every week. That part I'm definitely keeping up with.
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Nathan Kim
•Good! A lot of people miss that requirement and wonder why their payments stop.
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Eleanor Foster
Try messaging your state legislators office. Sometimes they can help cut through Washington ESD red tape when constituents are having problems.
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Ryan Young
•That's actually a really good idea. I hadn't thought of going that route.
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Lucas Turner
•My cousin did this last year and got a response from Washington ESD within 2 days. Worth a shot!
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Kai Rivera
I used Claimyr too after reading about it here. Got connected to Washington ESD in like 20 minutes instead of spending all day calling. The agent was able to see there was a verification hold on my claim that wasn't showing up online.
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Ryan Young
•That sounds exactly like what might be happening to me. Did they fix it right away once they found the issue?
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Kai Rivera
•They had to send me some forms to fill out but yeah, got it resolved within a week after that call.
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Anna Stewart
•How did you find out about Claimyr? This is the first I'm hearing about it but sounds useful.
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Layla Sanders
Check your spam folder for emails from Washington ESD. Sometimes their emails get filtered out and you miss important requests for information.
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Ryan Young
•Just checked spam and nothing there either. It's like Washington ESD just forgot I exist.
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Morgan Washington
Are you sure your weekly claims are actually going through? Sometimes the website glitches and it looks like you submitted but it didn't actually save.
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Ryan Young
•Each week I get the confirmation page saying it was submitted successfully. Should I be getting emails too?
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Morgan Washington
•You should get email confirmations for each weekly claim. If you're not getting those, something's definitely wrong.
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Kaylee Cook
This exact thing happened to my neighbor. Turned out Washington ESD had flagged his claim for identity verification but never sent him the notice. He only found out when he finally got through on the phone.
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Ryan Young
•Identity verification? What kind of documents did he need to provide?
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Kaylee Cook
•I think it was driver's license, social security card, and some employment records. But he had to call to find out what they needed.
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Oliver Alexander
The fact that you have no correspondence at all is a huge red flag. Even routine claims generate some paperwork. Something is definitely broken with your account.
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Ryan Young
•That's what I was thinking too. Like shouldn't I at least have my initial determination letter?
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Lara Woods
•Yes absolutely. You should have gotten that within a week of filing. I'd definitely use that Claimyr service people mentioned to get through to someone.
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Adrian Hughes
Try calling the technical support line instead of the regular claims line. Sometimes they can see different information about what's wrong with your account.
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Ryan Young
•Didn't know there was a separate tech support number. Do you have it handy?
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Adrian Hughes
•It should be on the Washington ESD website contact page. But honestly tech support might just tell you to call the regular line anyway.
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Molly Chambers
Whatever you do, don't stop filing your weekly claims even though you're not getting paid. If there's a processing issue and you miss weeks, you'll lose those payments permanently.
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Ryan Young
•Yeah I've been keeping up with those religiously. That's the one thing I was sure about doing right.
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Ian Armstrong
•Smart! I know someone who gave up filing weekly claims thinking it didn't matter and lost like $3000 in back pay.
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Eli Butler
Honestly at this point I'd try the Claimyr thing. Six weeks is way too long and clearly something is wrong that you can't see from your end. Need to get a human on the phone to figure out what's blocking your payments.
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Ryan Young
•Yeah I think you're right. I'm going to check out that website tonight and see if I can get through to someone tomorrow.
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Marcus Patterson
•Keep us posted on what you find out! Curious to hear what was actually wrong with your claim.
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Lydia Bailey
UPDATE: Used Claimyr this morning and finally got through to Washington ESD! Turns out my former employer did contest my claim but the notice got sent to my old address somehow. Agent is fixing the address issue and said I should see my back payments within 5-7 business days once the contest is resolved. Thanks everyone for the help!
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Mateo Warren
•That's awesome! Glad you figured out what was wrong. The address thing is so frustrating.
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Sofia Price
•See? I knew it had to be something like that. Washington ESD's system just doesn't communicate problems very well.
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Alice Coleman
•Thanks for updating us! Definitely going to remember Claimyr if I ever have issues getting through to them.
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