When a Mass. woman couldn't claim her unemployment benefits, she called NBC10 Boston Responds

If you need help with an unemployment claim, it isn’t always easy to get through to the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance by phone.

A frustrated Middleborough woman reached out to our NBC10 Boston Responds team when she couldn’t get through and couldn’t get her unemployment benefits.

The department says a steady rise in fraudulent activity nationwide is part of the reason.

Debi Field’s smartphone call logs back up her story.

“So,  you can see that number, I called 12 times that day,” she says, scrolling through the calls. “And if you click on it, it'll say the longest call time was an hour 35 minutes.”

The mom says she spent hours on the phone and on hold earlier this year trying to get through to the Department of Unemployment Assistance for help with her unemployment claim.

 “There's 10 times there with the longest being 2 hours and 20 minutes,” she says of another day she spent on the phone.

Field says she applied for unemployment benefits after the medical office she worked in closed down in late January.  She says she filled out the needed paperwork but was repeatedly asked for additional documents. 

“I've called probably 100 times trying to get through,” she says.   “I was transferred to people online on the phone that didn't know what to do when they transferred me back to the main system. And every time you got transferred, you had to wait another hour to get through to somebody. So, it was just a crazy process to get this all taken care of.”

We reached out to the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance on behalf of Field and several others this year who contacted NBC10 Boston Responds frustrated with the department’s call center.  NBC10 viewers told us they were on hold “multiple hours and days in a row,” or continued to get a recording that told them to “try calling back later in the week”. 

A spokesperson with the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development told us:

“The Department of Unemployment Assistance is dedicated to delivering quality, efficient customer service and is taking steps to improve response time while ensuring program integrity. With a steady rise in fraudulent activity nationwide, we are working with the U.S. Department of Labor to put new measures in place to prevent scams so that eligible claimants can access the benefits they need. We also continue to advocate for more federal funding to support DUA’s critical work on behalf of Massachusetts residents.”

In March, DUA implemented the U.S. Department of Labor’s new identity verification options and says it is watching the process closely to make data-driven decisions to improve customer service levels.

But fraud investigations take time and resources, which can impact the call center.

According to the department, current call center wait times are around 48 minutes.

The average wait time from the initial filing to receiving a first payment in Massachusetts is 18 days - that’s three days less than what the federal government considers a timely first payment.

Field waited seven weeks.

“If it had gone on much longer, I was going to have to take my daughter out of day care, which would in turn hurt my ability to get a job, because then I’d have to find day care again,” says Field.  “But again, thankfully I had resources to help me. But I know there's a lot of people out there that live paycheck to paycheck and have seven weeks of no income.”

DUA says it is working diligently to strengthen response and improve communication.  It is instituting a call-back feature so you don’t have to wait on the phone, reassigning agents, moving the call center to a new platform that they say is an industry leader in call center communications, and applying for all available federal funding so they’re able to fill critical support roles.

If you have a consumer problem, contact NBC10 Boston Responds by filling out our online consumer complaint form. We will get back to you!