VEC said she couldn't get benefits because she owed over $20K. But they had already said she owed nothing

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Angela Robertson had a rough time during the pandemic. And the difficulties continued afterwards.

"They started sending me letters saying, 'Oh, you owe from the pandemic.' It was in the 20s, many thousands of dollars," Robertson said.

WTVR

The mail service worker is immunocompromised and has had COVID twice.

During her extended layoffs, she got benefits through the Virginia Employment Commission, but later got a shocking notice: she owed it all back.

"I said, no, I don't owe this," Robertson said. "They had me do an appeal, but they told me to keep filing. And so whatever they owed me, I would supposedly get."

But no one at the VEC could tell her why they were trying to get the money back from her.

"No one can give me a reason why I owed this," Robertson said. "I wasn't getting my funds. And every time I talked to someone, it was always different, as to the reason why."

Robertson responded to each of the dozens of notices about the tens of thousands of dollars she supposedly owed, asking for an appeal, but to no avail.

Then somehow, after nearly two years, an appeals examiner notified her that the VEC had waited too long to answer her.

"I got a letter in the mail saying, 'Okay, you know, everything that we said you owe? You don't owe it anymore. It's vacated," Robertson said.

But when Robertson later applied for unemployment, she was stunned to learn she would not be paid because, although she was qualified, she once again owed the VEC that earlier amount, which she had documents to prove had been vacated.

Naturally, she tried to contact the VEC.

"They said I would have to wait for someone in Appeals or the deputy to contact me. And no one ever contacted me," Robertson said. "But they did send me out a tax form for the funds that I supposedly got. And I was like, 'I didn't get this, so I don't owe this.'"

To Robertson, that added insult to injury.

"I still paid the taxes on it, you know, because I didn't want another problem with the IRS," she said. "So even though I didn't get the funds, I still paid the taxes on them."

Then Robertson saw a story on an earlier claimant whose struggle with the VEC CBS 6 had helped resolve.

Watch: Truck driver gets tax bill for benefits he never got. He came to CBS 6 for help.

"I actually was watching Channel 6 News at 11 o'clock and I saw a similar person who had the same exact issues that I had," said Robertson.

Robertson contacted me, so I reached out to the VEC.

Communications director Kerri O'Brien sent a statement that reads in part:

"The implementation of most appeals reversals is now handled by automated systems. However, overpayment reversals still require manual review to ensure all refunds are accurate and all financial steps are double-checked...."

It continues:

"In addition, to enhance our customer contact center assistance and to strengthen the implementation of appeals reversals, we have added additional staff and advanced training...."

For Robertson, that meant the end of a long wait.

"You reached out to me, and right away I got my funds that I had been waiting two years for," said Robertson. "But who else out there is waiting to have their situation cleared up? You know, maybe they spent years trying to contact unemployment, and you just give up and say, 'Okay, you know, I'm just going to walk away."

These days, Robertson's case may be an outlier for the Virginia Employment Commission: over the last two years, the VEC has made dramatic improvements in several key measures that are tracked by the US Department of Labor.

As far as getting the first check out to claimants within the 14 to 21 day window set by the DOL, for the first quarter of 2025, Virginia did that in 83.3% of the cases. That was 20^th best in the country, above the national average of 77%.

Compare that to the first quarter of 2023, when Virginia ranked dead last, with that first check getting out to claimants in the 14-21 day window less than 30% of the time.

In another category, the timeliness of first appeals after claimants are denied benefits, the improvement has been even faster. In the last quarter of 2023, getting an appeal heard by the VEC took a year-and-a-half; at 546 days, Virginia was the second worst in the country, trailing only Alabama.

The DOL says an appeal should be heard within 30 days.

For the first quarter of 2025, the VEC took 12 days on average to hear an appeal, 10^th best in the country and far faster than the DOL's standard.

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