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Some unemployment benefit cardholder accounts wrongly closed due to alleged fraud

Several online communities indicated many people had accounts closed due to the error.

ARIZONA, USA — Multiple people who received unemployment insurance benefits reportedly had their card accounts closed on Saturday, the Arizona Department of Economic Security said Monday.

The wrongful closure of the card accounts was allegedly due to sweeping fraud detection and prevention methods, DES said in a tweet on Monday.

"Whenever additional fraud detection and prevention measures are put into place, there will be a small portion of individuals eligible for benefits who may be impacted by these measures," DES said.

Any impacted cardholder has to contact DES directly to prove their account isn't fraudulent in order to get their funds back, according to the DES tweets.

A number of the "small portion of individuals" that DES references appear to have started a Facebook group called Arizonans vs DES Class Action page

Another person made a post about Arizona on the r/Unemployment subreddit on the Reddit website, saying that their card account was also closed with all money being withdrawn. Many people responded, saying the same happened to them. 

The department has not reported the exact number of accounts that were wrongfully closed.

Was your account wrongfully closed? Email us at connect@12news.com with details.

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