A flooring contractor based in Virginia Beach, Va., has received 49 unemployment claims since August—but the company only has nine employees, 13 News Now reported. The unemployment claims, the company says, are fraudulent.
“It could take another full-time employee to deal with all the claims that are being filed against us,” Cecil Ward, an employee at W.C. Carpenter, told 13 News Now. The flooring contractor’s leaders and employees added that no names on the unemployment claims are people who have ever worked at the company. All of the claims cited W.C. Carpenter for a “lack of work.”
W.C. Carpenter, which does commercial and residential flooring, reported each claim to the Virginia Employment Commission as fraud. However, it recently received a quarterly statement from the VEC that the VEC paid out benefits on four of the claims, according to the report.
"It’s going to increase our [tax] rate, which is going to have a negative impact on our business," Ward added.
The company asked the VEC for help sorting through the situation but has yet to receive any relief, the report stated.
"I feel like people are working the system,” Ward said. “We’re not the only ones getting hit, this is going on everywhere.”
