Many states and some federal agencies have contracted with a company called ID.ME in order for individuals to verify their identification prior to approving or extending a particular government service, benefit, or access to information on government-related. This need for identity verification as a requirement has increased greatly over the past year due to two factors: COVID19, and the explosion of fraudulent payments in the billions of dollars being made to identity thieves, imposters, hackers, posers, etc. In response to that fraud, combined with the fact that all businesses have gone to a more computer-based way of conducting operations, government offices became overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the demands and needs of the people.
One of the largest and most important areas that ID.ME is being used is several state’s unemployment departments, obviously widespread due to the shutdown of many businesses and worldwide job-loss. Unemployment benefits also made up a large portion of fraud that took place, caused by the rush to make payments without ensuring proper recipients.
ID.ME may be effective and efficient in some instances or for some people who have used it. Unfortunately, that is not the case with all people. In my household, we had a need to use ID.ME, and on the first attempt, something didn’t seem right, my Spidey Sense began to tingle. We aborted the attempt in order to investigate further. I searched for reviews of ID.ME on numerous sources, and all I’ve found is a flood of frustrated and angry people all over the country. Worse than any initial problems people have had is the fact that neither ID.ME nor the government agency that contracted it respond to requests for help, even though they post troubleshooting methods for that exact reason. Thousands or tens of thousands of people are in limbo because of these glitches, the worst of which translate to weeks or months of non-payment of benefits to which they are legally entitled.
Below, I have linked just one of the many places I searched for reviews, one that should probably be the most reputable and reliable, the Better Business Bureau. The complaints there go back many months, yet I wonder what has been done to either address them or alleviate them.
https://www.bbb.org/us/va/mclean/profile/government-contractors/idme-inc-0241-236003677/complaints
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