North Texas man says he continues to get invalid overpayment notices from Texas Workforce Commission
MCKINNEY, Texas - A McKinney man is speaking out after receiving stacks of invalid overpayment notices from the Texas Workforce Commission.
He said each time he filed an appeal, and TWC would recognize he did not owe money, but then the process would repeat itself.
Robert Jacobs said he is speaking out about the problems he's endured in hopes of helping others who may be bombarded by similar inaccurate overpayment notices.
"This is a year and a half worth of documents generated by Texas Workforce Commission," Jacobs said. "It is a lot of paper. That is just for one person."
Jacobs works for the Texas Rangers and American Airlines Center.
When the pandemic hit, his employers told their workers to file for unemployment due to the large number of cancelled events.
Jacobs did, while submitting his hours for days that he worked.
One year later, the overpayment notices from TWC began arriving.
Jacobs said the issue stemmed from pay periods that ended on different days.
For the Rangers, it was Fridays, while the AAC’s week ended on Sundays, and TWC's week ended on Saturdays.
"You would explain, they would get HR on, everyone would agree I submitted correctly, they submitted based on payroll week," Jacobs said. "I thought we are done, after that they deposited money in my account, right after that they would send an overpayment notice. And I thought, you can't have it both ways. You can't send me money and then say I owe you money. I would call and get nobody."
Jacobs called his state representative for help.
"Went through more hearings, each one was in my favor, decision was reversed, they would send me more money, and then I would say, ‘I know what is about to happen I am going to get an over payment notice,’" Jacobs recalled.
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[REPORTER: "Did it feel like you were stuck in Groundhog Day?"]
"Yes, exactly. Kept going through the same maze," Jacobs said. "Many hours. Each hearing lasted 45 minutes, to an hour on some days. I would have three back-to-back-to-back."
FOX 4 reached out to TWC to ask if the executive director would answer our questions about why this happened to Jacobs, and how many more are impacted by the same problem.
TWC said it needed more time.
[REPORTER: "What would you say to [executive director] Ed Serna?"]
"Fix the problem, address the problem," Jacobs said.
Once again, Jacobs said he received a call Friday that his issue should be resolved and he should not be receiving any more overpayment notices.
That said, he's hanging onto all of his documentation.
TWC said they should be able to give FOX 4 a statement Monday.