A number of readers have reached out to me regarding people who are charging exorbitant amounts for filing unemployment on their behalf.

Please be aware of four things before hiring someone to help you with unemployment.

1. Trust
   Do you trust the person? Will the person have access to your social security number and other personal information?
2. Understand
   Do you understand the statements that you are making to the government? Unemployment is both state and federal agencies, so any false statement or claim that you make (or is made on your behalf) can have serious consequences.
3. Legal
   Having someone else file on your behalf could run you into legal issues. Getting advice is one thing, giving someone your information and them applying on your behalf is quite another.
4. Cost
   As with everything else in life, before agreeing to hire someone, find out if the cost is reasonable. I was surprised to hear reports of people charging $1,000 and up. Someone even advertised a fee of $3,500 for putting through an application! You can get someone to help you for substantially less than the above amounts.

Remember, the actual application is completely free – and helpful guidance is available on homeunemployed.com. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pay someone to help you navigate the – at times misleading and confusing – application process, just do so with your eyes wide open.

Have any questions? Need help with Unemployment? Reach out via email or WhatsApp.