Virginia Employment Commission [VEC]
reviews and complaints

I can relate to you on the rudeness of SOME of the people I dealt with there. I feel like because they were working from home (some of them again not all) felt like they could act how they want to and be rude and accidentally disconnect you so on and so forth. It was like dealing with a bunch of children playing on the grown ups phone ya know? As far as them not keeping notes about who they are talking to, oddly enough, they do keep records but again, records that if and WHEN those records get pulled for court proceedings will clearly show the absolute childishness of some of these reps. I mean that I had asked when I first started calling about weather or not they keep notes because why should I have to call in and repeat myself 5 times a day? After that, a rep says ok, let me look. Then she said she sees something but not fully understanding. She really wanted to send me a new pin# which I didn't want to do just yet cause I was looking for SPECIALIST, not a customer service rep. So when you first call in you get a cust serv rep. They can only answer so many questions and its very general stuff. If you have an ISSUE, as most of us do when we are calling them up, then they MUST transfer us to a vm line to speak to a specialist. The vm specifically states that it could take up to 3 days for a specialist to return your call. You are supposed to leave your identifying information on the vm, this way when the specialist calls you back, you are not having to give your info back out again. Maybe last 4 or ss# and last four of pin(not sure about that as it has changed from one rep to another so many times) but anyway, that is the way it worked at first. When I spoke to my first specialist, well I did have to talk to 5 cust serv reps first to FINALLY GET ONE OF THEM TO TRANSFER ME TO A SPECIALIST. More than anything, not being able to call up and immediately get transferred to a specialist's vm in order to wait the 3 days to get some help, was the worse thing. That is what dragged everything out and let a gazillion under-qualified people to dig into my business that as far as I understood it they shouldn't be in. They shouldn't be in it cause they have no ability to assist. So why have me repeat myself over and over and over to find out SURPRISE SURPRISE YOU CAN'T HELP ME JUST TRANSFER ME TO THE VM FOR PETE SAKES ! I mean, the fact that you have to possibly wait up to 3 days to get a response is bad enough but to have to take 5 weeks just to get to the vm is really a huge problem. I started to feel like they just enjoyed messing with me. I'd call up and immediately say, please PLEASE, PLEASE ,PLEASE JUST TRANSFER ME TO THE SPECIALIST VM. I DON'T NEED TO TELL YOU ANYTHING, ITS JUST A WASTE OF TIME, YALL SHOULD HAVE IT ON MY RECORD AS TO WHAT IS GOING ON WITH MY CASE SO PLEASE JUST PUT ME TO THE VM. I don't think I've spoken to a specialist since the FIRST ONE THAT I SPOKE TO WHEN HE ADVISED ME TO SEND MY LICENSE AND SS CARD TO A FAX #. After that, I continued to deal with people who were not ACCEPTING THAT THEY WEREN'T SPECIALISTS...or they were messing with me, idk. I just think after you have already fought your way to get to a specialist the first time; they probably should take you on as THEIR CASE LOAD. YOU SHOULD GET THEIR DIRECT LINE, OF COURSE STILL UNDERSTANDING THAT IT COULD TAKE UP TO 3 DAYS FOR THEM TO RESPOND, BUT AT LEAST YOU CAN GET BACK TO THEM AGAIN . This man asked me to send on blind faith my license and ss card to a random fax number , after someone had just taken my money, stealing my identity in order to do so. He advised me it should be resolved within 3 to 4 weeks after that. I firmly believed that he was telling me the truth and felt that he knew what he was doing vs the reps below him that usually answer with "'I'm sorry we don't know, I can't answer that for you, It's not clear as to how long and so on and so on...

maybe you don't know because you can't know because you are not the specialists who you have to carefully screen calls to let them through to them. I mean honestly, once I've gone through the first intense screening to see weather or not I can speak to a specialist , why should I have to continue to do that over and over? It was bizarre, trying to get through to this man again to verify receipt of my id's was near impossible. I had 3 or 4 different cust serv reps tell me that yes they do show it as received but that's all they can tell me now I have to wait. I said, well I'd like to just speak to the specialist again if I can. They say they can't put me back directly to a certain person. I said ok just send me to the specialists in general. They disconnected me 3 times over. Each time I got someone saying that my id's were received...I'm like omg why do I have to keep telling each person why I'm calling when you have already had me on the phone...don't you think frustrating someone to this capacity will agitate someone?! The 4th person I spoke to , was verifying my personal info. Prior to this each person before did the same. For some reason, this last person verified my phone # as one not mine, I flipped, I said you know what this is why I just need to get to a specialist vm to verify receipt of id's that were sent over the other day. At this point I had already been reading a lot about how some of these thefts that took place a year earlier were thought to have been done internally. One of the reasons that this is what was suspected is because VEC ADAMANTLY DENIES THAT THEY HAD A SECURITY BREACH...well if you had NO BREACH, then someone inside had to do it, how else would this many people have redirected payments. I'm not talking about id theft where they applied for benefits and got it where the victim wasn't on unemployment. I'm talking about people like me, who were on unemployment and then had a week or more of benefits stolen from them by having it redirected to another bank acct#. How else than would so many people all at the same time wind up having their money redirected? Considering how the reps jerk you around, disconnect you, wont send you where you want to go, force you to give your info to each of them, they are the last ones in your account...for example, after 3 disconnects and verified info, the 4th person states the phone # in my acct doesn't match my number. At what point did that happen? The last rep, or the one I was talking to at that moment? Either way its happening right there in my opinion. I finally get switched to the specialist vm and I couldn't wait to be off the dam phone with any of them for 3 whole glorious days cause the stress that these calls would bring with the absolute stupidity of it all was exhausting. All I wanted to do was leave a vm for the specialist wait the 3 days and hear back from someone that ACTUALLY KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON AND CAN FIX THE ISSUE, PLAYING GAMES WITH THESE KIDS WHO THOUGHT ITS FUN TO JERK YOU AROUND IS CRAZY...THAT'S ILLEGAL, I CAN'T UNDERSTAND HOW THE VEC ISN'T INSPECTING THESE CALLS AND THEIR ACCOUNTS SEEING WHO THEY TALKING TO , THEY SHOULD KNOW WHICH REP SPEAKING TO WHICH BENEFIT RECEIVER EACH TIME THEY TYPE IN A PERSONS SS# AND PIN# THEY SHOULD HAVE THAT LOCKED INTO THEIR LOG THAT GOES TO THE HIGHER UP PEOPLE. I firmly believed they had no security measures in place for all of these randos that were working from home because in house , I"m sure they didn't deal with this rampid problem of ethics and morals in such a way. People are less likely to do the dirt when you see them everyday. These kids act like they bullies on the internet and hey, if they found a way to get a way with it , they going to do it, cause , well everyone else is. That's what I mean about the record keeping. Ok so after leaving a message for my specialist ...within 5 minutes I got a call back. This was the first of MANY CALLS I WOULD RECEIVE LIKE THIS. Almost IMMEDIATELY, I would get a response. The woman asked for all my details ss pin situation, she was lost but I felt lucky I finally talking to my specialist and this going to be fixed asap. She saw the note from my specialist i think because she asked if I had sent the id's over. I told her as I did all the people all day that happened. She said ok, well you will need to resend it because we haven't received it. I absolutely lost it ...I should have just taken her fax number and that way I have proof as to where this # is going to exactly. I didn't however, I was livid, I said you don't make any sense...I spoke to 4 reps just before you WHO ALL SAID IT WAS RECEIVED AT THE FAX# I SENT IT TO ALL STATED SAME DATE AND TIME , WHY ARE YOU SAYING NO?! She tried to save herself , she said ok , well it's possible that they did receive it but didn't put it into the system yet...that still made no sense as they all said they saw it on the account which is in the system. She then said ok just one minute I'm going to reach out to a specialist real quick to see what is going on with this. As soon as she came back, I said ma'am, aren't YOU A SPECIALIST...she stuttered a bit , then said no...how could she after she came back from talking to a specialist FOR ME..she said that the specialist said if I'm struggling to make ends meet I need to go to social services and apply cause this will not be resolved in a few weeks. After that , I said you know what, I need to go cause I don't know who I'm talking to, she also wanted to change my pin# and I said NO DON'T CHANGE MY PIN# IF YOU DO I WONT BE ABLE TO FOLLOW UP ABOUT THIS WITH ANYONE UNTIL I GET THIS IN THE MAIL WHICH WILL TAKE A GOOD WEEK OR SO, GIVEN NO ONE GUNNA TAKE IT FROM THE MAIL!She ignored me and said she HAD TO DO IT. ODD, CAUSE NO ONE ELSE HAD TO DO IT...SHE WANTED TO CHANGE IT AND KEEP ME OFF OF IT FOR A WEEK OR SO. So a week later I FINALLY get to call back and once again ask to LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR THE SPECIALIST...AGAIN, IMPOSSIBLE TO GET THAT VM. THEY REFUSED, they forced me to tell them my story over and over and over again. Id keep reiterating I am already working on this and you don't have any answers for me, you need to transfer me to a specialist and allow me to speak to leave the message. The fact that the last rep who called me immediately after leaving a message on the SPECIALIST'S VM...i definitely did leave a message for SPECIALIST...the fact that she called me immediately, within minutes even, and led me to believe she WAS A SPECIALIST, THEN SHE ACTED AS IF SHE WAS GOING IN BETWEEN MYSELF AND A SPECIALIST AS IF SHE WAS ASKING THEN WHAT TO DO...THEN WHEN I GOT TIRED OF WHAT SEEMED LIKE BS TO ME , SHE THEN FORCED ME TO CHANGE MY PIN# THAT I DIDN'T WANT TO DO AT THAT TIME, ESPECIALLY NOT WITH THIS WACKO WHO CAME OUT THE WOODWORK PRETENDING TO BE SOMETHING SHE NOT AND DO SOMETHING THAT SHE CAN'T ..NO, ALSO THE OTHER REPS OFFERED TO CHANGE MY PIN# FOR ME AND I REQUESTED THAT THEY DID NOT, AS THERE WAS NO NEED TO DO THAT AT THAT POINT AS FAR AS I WAS CONCERNED MY [censored] WAS FROZEN WITH THAT PIN# THAT I WAS CURRENTLY USING. BY CREATING A NEW PIN# KNOWING THAT THE SPECIALIST WAS DUE TO CALL ME IN 3 DAYS, SHE PREVENTED ME FROM GETTING IN TOUCH WITH THAT PERSON, I THINK. SHE COULD HAVE CHANGED MY PHONE # AS SOME OTHER REP DID PRIOR (as a matter of fact I told her that had just happened and I was concerned that people who are supposed to be working there may be doing these things), THEN THE PIN# SHE HAS, SHE CAN USE THAT TO BE THE ONE WHO RECEIVED THE CALL FROM THE ACTUAL SPECIALIST. I've not any mail or any phone calls from anyone from this place except when I call them and leave a message that day for a SUPPOSED SPECIALIST , yet they are always calling right back and then it seem like they were just putting me back in the que to leave a message for the customer service. Anyway, I've gone through this stress for several months and i've had to take breaks for a few weeks here and there cause I cannot keep getting myself upset and aggrivated. I thought for certain I'd been able to get this fixed or at least get some sort of contact from people over there. These records that they did keep is after a while, i'd keep saying im not going into this anymore no offense but please read notes. Their notes are only mentioning how I think that one of them could have done it and so if these are the notes that the next one is going to read, that is why they are all acting this way to me. This doesn't explain why people did this in the beginning before there were notes , but moving forward these are the notes in there. That's crazy, they should not be putting notes in there that are trying to paint me in a bad light when in the beginning it was their craziness that pushed me to feel frustrated and scared and rightfully so. I also have been through some trauma myself and so when this stuff happens and it isn't resolved it makes me scared that this could be caused by some one else I should be concerned about. Someone redirecting a one week payment 2nd to last week before I was done with unemployment, is id theft and it scares me , I need to know who did it or at least who didn't in order to move on with my life. It has held me up for now I am afraid if my devices are hacked, my mail, neighbors , maintenance men, family , friends?...I mean , to leave this open ended the way that they did and then to have so many of these reps not send me to the vm I had requested, is bizarre. I just think that this should have been handled and COULD HAVE AND WOULD HAVE BEEN HANDLED CORRECTLY, IF THE REPS THAT PREVENTED ME THEN AND PREVENT ME STILL TO TALK TO THE CORRECT PEOPLE IS WHY 9 MONTHS LATER i STILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR THIS TO BE RESOLVED AND WHAT'S WORSE ONCE AGAIN MY TAX RETURN I CANT FILE AND ITS AFFECTING EVERY AREA OF MY LIFE NOT KNOWING HOW , WHO, AND WHY THIS HAPPENED TO ME. I CAN'T TRUST ANYONE OR ANY OF MY DEVICES AND I CAN'T AFFORD TO GET NEW ONES NOW, ITS VERY MUCH CRIPPLED ME. I JUST NEED THIS FIXED TO MOVE FORWARD.