LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — All of the sudden, a link has popped up on the DETR website allowing people to request a waiver against paying over-payment fees due to non-fraudulent causes.
Nevada resident Janell Clark, and internationally certified e-discovery specialist, was informed by DETR that her benefit amount was reduced by half and that she owed them back over $13,000 because of over-payment mistakes made by federal government calculations.
Clark tells us: "As someone who is a business owner or an independent contractor, which are the people a part of the PUA system, if you end up having to repay that how does that impact reopening your business?"
This isn’t the only time she has received an overpayment letter that was later corrected.
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"If you require someone to make an appeal, which if you file an appeal it’s about a 50/50 chance that you’ll stop getting paid all together, you’re rolling the dice and it’s puts you in a very unique situation of duress without due process," says Clark
Because of this, Clark is not sure if she should appeal or not and worries if it will take a long time.
An act under President Trump stated that overpayment forgiveness would be given from the federal side. Now under the Biden Administration it has been expanded to the state level as well.
Clark asks: "For a non-fraudulent error specifically, why haven’t we just gone through our system and waived them?Why make us go through this agonizing process where they ask a lot of evasive questions just to determine if you have been overpaid?"
Claimants have 11 days to submit a request. Clark says this short time period is stressful after an already very difficult year.
A big question many people have: after the many technical issues DETR has experienced in the past, is the system equipped to handle this?
We reached out to DETR to ask them questions but did not receive a response on the matter.
