WAVERLY, Va. -- A Waverly woman got a surprise at the mailbox Wednesday afternoon: her long-awaited benefits were finally released to her by the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC).
She told me she's grateful even though it's taken nearly 1,000 days.
"Is it going to take another two to three years to get my money?" Lisa Howard asked after her appeal was finally resolved five weeks ago.
Howard had been waiting quite a while for the VEC to hear her case.
The home health aide was laid off during the pandemic, and when her benefits stopped after a few months, she filed an appeal.
That was September 2021.
"Honestly, I never really forgot about it because I would randomly check the Way2Go debit card that I had, that the VEC uses, just to see if it miraculously appeared," Howard said this week. "But I just moved on and figured it was probably a lost cause at this point."
More than 2 1/2 years later, 948 days to be exact, Howard got a letter from the VEC: she had won her appeal.
Now all she had to do was figure out how and when she'd get the thousands of dollars she was owed.
"The appeal had been ruled in my favor, but there were no further instructions on what to do or what to expect," said Howard.
The delay in having her appeal heard was almost double the VEC's already lengthy average wait time of nearly 500 days.
At 497.3 days, Virginia is the third worst in the country, trailing only Alabama and Georgia.
The U.S. Department of Labor says appeals must be heard within 30 days.
But the waiting for Howard wasn't over. That warmly welcomed letter in mid-April was just the start of a daily effort to get through to someone at the VEC who could tell her when she might expect her money.
It took weeks.
"I had exhausted all means," Howard said. "I emailed people using all the emails that I had from previously when I was on unemployment. I called everyone I could. The last straw was when I got an e-mail from someone at the VEC that pretty much said, 'Good luck getting through. Here's the number.'"
After getting that heartfelt but frustrating email from a VEC employee, Howard contacted CBS 6.
"I wouldn't have gotten it [sent to me] if I didn't reach out to you," said Howard. "And that was just on a whim. I was going through Facebook and saw where you guys had updated on the VEC and their protocols. I was like, 'I'll just email [CBS 6] and try.'"
Kerri O'Brien, a spokesperson for the VEC, says our contacting her agency about Howard's case will help clarify the notification process for claimants who have won their appeals.
"Yes, we have heard that customers would like to know what's next and what to expect," said O'Brien. "So we're redoubling our training with our team to let claimants know, to share that information that it typically is going to be a 30 to 45-day process and why."
O'Brien also said the VEC has made great progress in clearing a massive backlog of appeals cases accrued during the pandemic: from 96,000 in January of last year, to 40,000 this January, to 16,000 appeals pending today.
As for the email from the VEC employee that Howard received, Howard has one perspective:
"They know internally how bad it is," said Howard. "And I think probably a lot of them feel bad for those that are trying to get through."
But O'Brien sees it differently.
"Quite honestly, that is not the best customer service response," said O'Brien. "And quite frankly, it's not necessarily true."
O'Brien says that's because the VEC's recent partnership with ID.me, an online verification tool, has streamlined virtually every process for claimants.
"Our customers can access benefits, file for their weekly claims, apply for claims, or check on the status of their claims online," O'Brien said. "And since we have done that, it has been highly successful. Almost all of our customers who are using ID.Me to file online for benefits, or file their weekly claims, are getting in with no problem at all."
As for Howard, she says the more than $5,000 she received this week will go a long way to paying bills and for an upcoming vacation.
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