By Stacey Cameron and Jordan Gartner
Published: Jun. 1, 2024 at 6:19 PM CDT
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV/Gray News) - Like millions of people across Tennessee, when the pandemic hit, Marquisha Mccullough fell on hard times after getting let go from her job selling insurance.
“I was selling supplemental insurance policies to business owners who had employees,” Mccullough said. “And I was expecting at the time and then the lockdown came, and everything froze. It was very stressful and a lot to process losing my job.”
So, as a single mom, and having just moved into a new apartment, Mccullough applied for unemployment benefits, and received payments from the beginning of April 2020, until late June 2021.
“When I first applied, that’s when Donald Trump had signed into legislation the CARES Act,” said Mccullough. “That’s when 1099 contractors and independent workers for the first time ever in U.S. history were able to take advantage of the COVID-19 unemployment benefits.”
But in November of 2021, the Tennessee Department of Labor issued a decision stating that Mccullough “was not eligible to receive pandemic unemployment assistance benefits.” As a result, the department ruled that she had been overpaid and was at fault, and because of that, her request to have the claim waived was subsequently denied.
On appeal, however, that decision was overruled in December 2023, and the tribunal hearing her case found Mccullough “was not at fault in establishing the overpayment.”
Accordingly, the case was remanded to the department for an investigation into whether she qualified for a waiver.
A spokesperson for the Department of Labor said an agent emailed Mccullough on April 15, 2024, to remind her that she could still file a waiver.
However, the department said she did not complete the form and that other requested documentation about her employment status had not been received.
Mccullough said she does not recall getting an email about the waiver and that she has submitted everything she has from that period between 2020 and 2021, and the only thing she has gotten in recent months from the Department of Labor are intimidating collection notices.
“This last letter, it’s in all caps: FINAL, FINAL, FINAL,” Mccullough said. “I feel like I’m part of some organized mob like these people are after me, and I’m like I can’t sleep.”
Now, Mccullogh says the department is garnishing her new claim for unemployment benefits after recently losing her job again, as well as her income tax refund.
“Four years later you come back and say I owe you $22,00? I’m going to be on the street, I’ll be pretty messed up,” Mccullough said. “I didn’t break a law, I didn’t commit fraud, it’s not my fault. So, what’s really going on?’
WSMV4 Investigates requested an interview with the Department of Labor to ask questions about unemployment overpayments during the height of the pandemic, but no one with the agency agreed to go on camera.
The department provided these figures:
Number of claims filed between March 2020 and July 2021: 1,256,789
Dollar amount of claims paid between March 2020 and September 2020: $1.6 Billion
Number of claims overpaid between March 2020 and July 2021: 23,799
Dollar amount of overpayments between March 2020 and July 2021: $63,177,227
The department also said that Tennessee offers a non-fault waiver option in cases of underemployment benefit overpayment, and “a claimant has 90 days from the determination of a non-fault overpayment to provide the department with a completed waiver form for consideration.”
For her part, Mccullough claims she has provided the department with everything needed since the beginning to prove she was eligible and entitled to unemployment benefits under the CARES Act.
Mccullough also said between the appeals, waiver forms and collection notices, the process has become so complicated that she is not sure what the department needs, and a lot of what they are asking for is long gone.
“I cannot complete a waiver form because it is asking for bills, and my bills are not the same now, and I don’t have bill statements from three and four years ago. I didn’t know I was going to need to keep them,” Mccullough said.
Frustrated, Mccullough says she is not certain what she is going to do now, fearing she is quickly running out of options, and unable to pay off the money the Department of Labor Insists that she still owes.
“This is just wrong, there is no doubt about it,” Mccullough said. “And I wonder like how many other people are they doing this too? It’s not right.”
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