The Employment Development Department just announced that it suspended account activity for approximately 27,000 suspicious medical provider registrants and 345,000 claims associated with those providers or other suspicious activity.

While the majority of these providers and claims were likely fraud attempts, the Department has partnered with state regulators and medical provider organizations to coordinate the verification process to clear any legitimate claims as quickly as possible. This is EDD’s top priority. That includes working to contact all claimants who have had their claim held up in this identity theft scam.

Purported medical providers must complete further identity verification with ID.me to potentially certify any disability claims. These personalized requests for medical provider verification through ID.me only come from an official EDD email address ending in @edd.ca.gov.

Medical providers who receive emails with information about how to verify identity through ID.me should carefully confirm the sender’s @edd.ca.gov email address.

Scammers attempt to impersonate government agencies in an attempt to trick people into clicking fake links. Such scam efforts are unfortunately common and slow verification and payment for legitimate claimants and providers.

Californians should safeguard financial and personal information online and elsewhere and remain vigilant to guard against identity theft.

Those who receive communications from EDD regarding a medical provider online account being created in the DI system, or an application for public benefits (such as disability or unemployment insurance) and believe someone filed the claim falsely, should file a fraud report by visiting Ask EDD and selecting the Report Fraud category to complete the Fraud Reporting Form.

Identity theft victims may also want to file an identity theft report with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). EDD continues to enhance and update information on the Help Fight Fraud webpage.

EDD took action in recent weeks to clamp down on a new disability insurance (DI) identity theft scam involving suspected organized criminal elements filing false DI claims using stolen credentials of individuals and medical or health providers. Disability insurance claimants have continued to receive payments if they were not associated with the recent scam attempts.