Losing your job is a terrifying experience, especially when you have no backup plan to keep a roof over your head and food on your table. Thankfully, unemployment benefits are there to kick in and bridge the gap until you’re able to find work again. Sadly, for Colorado woman Lisa Craig, the system failed her and it took spending the equivalent of 11 days on hold with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to get things sorted out.
Lisa Craig lost her job in May 2023.
While it does traditionally take around 6 weeks for unemployment benefits to kick in, no money was coming her way. She called multiple times throughout this period to find out what was going on, but given that the system is run nearly entirely by automated systems rather than human beings, that proved nearly impossible.
“I can’t even imagine a reason that this should be happening,” she told 9 News. “Every week nothing happens. And then every week less money is in the bank to pay your bills.”
Eventually, Craig found out what the hold-up was.
She revealed that in the dozens of times she called, she was only able to talk to a real person a total of five times. It was during one of those conversations that she discovered that she’s now on a “program integrity hold.”
This automated fraud detection service flagged Lisa Craig as apparently, someone had claimed unemployment in her name three years ago. However, they didn’t offer any help on how she could get things sorted out.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. At this point, it feels like I’ve been doing this a lifetime,” she said.
Sadly, Craig has had to use her retirement savings in order to pay her bills during this time.
“I just don’t know what else to do anymore. Enough is enough.”
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After about 278 hours on hold, Lisa Craig finally received her first unemployment payment.
Talking to KUSA, she said she received a check from the CDLE in mid-November, showing her persistence really did pay off.
“I was just like hallelujah, praise God,” Craig recalled. “I literally ran through the house doing a dance.”
She added that while the stress of what she went through kept her from sleeping properly, on the day she received the first check, she slept for 12 hours.
“That night I slept the best I slept in months,” she said.
At least this story had a happy ending, but Lisa Craig is worried for others who were stuck in the same position as her.
