Woman told she owes New Jersey $73 for overpaid unemployment from the '70s

By: Barry Leibowitz
Topics: Daily Blotter

Seal of the New Jersey Dept. of Labor

/ Wikipedia

(CBS/AP) AMESBURY, Mass. - Back in the 1970's - when Alice Mainville was 17 - she collected unemployment during a labor dispute at the New Jersey bakery where she worked.

Fast forward thirty five years...today she lives in Massachusetts, and she says she just got a bill from the state of New Jersey for $73 - supposedly that's how much she was overpaid in an unemployment check way back around 1977.

She doesn't plan to pay it.

Mainville, who moved to Massachusetts all those years ago after high school, tells the Daily News of Newburyport she won't pay up because New Jersey officials have not explained how they determined she owes the state that $73.

A New Jersey Department of Labor spokeswoman says insurance unemployment law doesn't let you just "write off" bad debt.

Maybe she could work one more shift in the bakery?

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by Molly-Pchr May 1, 2012 1:24 PM EDT

I agree she should ask to see the figures, but if she left for MA in the seventies, they might have been looking for her since then, dunning her at the wrong address. She's lucky she isn't being assessed interest if they are correct and she owes it. It wasn't as easy to find people back then. Now with the internet, they can find people.

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by rightontarget May 1, 2012 2:01 PM EDT: They can't charge her interest. It wasn't a loan or a credit card. Their mistake if they "overpaid" her so tuff luck on them! I wouldn't pay it either. It's money THEY overpaid HER. I say TDB (Too Dam Bad)

by slatep May 1, 2012 1:15 PM EDT

This just goes to show you what depths of desperation GB2 and Obama have driven local governmnts into.!!

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by democracy8 May 1, 2012 1:45 PM EDT: Oh, good grief! Get a life!!!


by rhondamt May 1, 2012 12:11 PM EDT: It doesn't surprise me. A few years ago, my husband went to renew his driver's license, which was first issued in the state we now reside over 20 years ago. He was told that he could not renew his license because there was a "hold" put on it by the state of New Jersey. It turned out to be a parking ticket from 1989 - the last year he lived in NJ. He had to pay it before he could renew or obtain a license in any other state.; Reply to this comment


by joeyc85 May 1, 2012 12:06 PM EDT: She shouldn't pay till the state proves how they came up with those numbers.; Reply to this comment

by AOCGUY May 1, 2012 11:56 AM EDT

She makes a good point that the state should at least show how they determined she was overpaid. On the other hand New Jersy probably spent more than $73 determining that she owed the money and sending her the bill.

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by mooncrow66 May 1, 2012 2:10 PM EDT: Pay the $73 fee/fine in 50 separate personal checks, each for an odd amount between $1.00 and $2.00. The state has to accept them as legal payment; but the state will spend hours processing all the paperwork that has to accompany each check. <smile>

by forgottenson May 1, 2012 11:19 AM EDT

geesh, next thing you know, they'll be coming after us for taxes from the dollar profit we made from our neighborhood lemonade stands when we were four.

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