I've been collecting unemployment insurance for probably two-to-three months now, and I recently received notice that my claim was being challenged. If this goes through I'm going to end up paying 4x what I received back to the state in damages which is
not going to work well since I have no source of income right now. Assuming that I am completely in the wrong here (Edit:
this was completely by mistake, I did not intentionally defraud the state), how the hell do I resolve this?
A short version of my story may provide some more insight:
My claim was for the four years I worked as a co-op student, receiving no credits on my transcript. I didn't think that would be a problem since there was no expressly mentioned rules about cooperative education on the claim forms when I signed up. I think there is some distinction between an internship that results in college credit and jobs that don't, but I need help deciding how I should determine that.
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Doing an internship for no credit doesn't make you a student. I hope I'm misunderstanding what you typed here.
This is in Michigan.
As I had it explained to me, if you are doing anything that prevents you from taking a job, you are not eligible for unemployment benefits. If you were a full time student and are applying for unemployment on a period where you were going to school, your school would interfere with your ability to take a paying job. Likewise, if you were working as an unpaid intern, that is going to interfere with your ability to take a paying job. Either of those might disqualify you.
If you are a student, your college may offer free or heavily subsidized legal services. That might be something to look at.
So problem solved. All that's left is to actually find work within thirty days.