unemployment

‘Error Message' Preventing Some From Applying for Federal Unemployment

NBC Universal, Inc.

It’s an issue we told you about weeks ago, but unemployed people trying to apply for Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance say they still can’t get it fixed. 

James Lofton was denied for state reemployment assistance, but when he found out he could be eligible for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, he decided to apply. 

“But as you go through the application, it kept kicking me off in the exact same page,” Lofton said. 

He says he has been booted off the online application more than 70 times. He says each time he tried to submit personal information he received an error message. 

Lofton sent us a screen grab of the error message from the CONNECT portal. 

The message states, “Error: The system has experienced an unexpected technical error. Please close your internet browser and then reopen it, and log back in to CONNECT through your normal process. You may need to try this once or twice to be successful and we appreciate your patience. If this error continues to appear please contact the Department of Economic Opportunity.” 

Lofton says when he contacted the DEO, a representative experienced the same technical glitch when looking at his application and was unable to assist him. 

“When she got to the same page, kicked her off, error message, so basically they don’t know I exist because my status is unregistered,” Lofton said. 

Lofton isn’t the only one experiencing this issue. 

Thierry Sleszynski called NBC 6 Responds weeks ago when he received the same error message. 

“I press the 'continue' button and then it just bombs out, I get an error message saying something bad happened,” Sleszynski said. 

According to the Department of Economic Opportunity, 695,688 people have even deemed ineligible for state reemployment assistance and 212,846 of those applicants have qualified for Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. 

“I’ve burned through most of my savings, so that is not fun, and it is frustrating you know, there is nothing else, it is just frustrating” Lofton said. 

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