Pennsylvania’s unemployment compensation program has been a problem for years.

While some states have struggled under the burden of a massive increase in claims during the coronavirus pandemic, in Pennsylvania, that was only half the story.

The system itself has been a problematic labyrinth. It was hard to apply. It was hard to get information. It was hard to get your money. Name a way the system could be broken, and it probably was — including the fact that a replacement system was in limbo for 11 years thanks to a legal spat between the state and IBM.

That was resolved in June when the new system finally went online. At the same time, a lot of Pennsylvanians were going back to work as covid-19 restrictions were being lifted.

So all of the unemployment system problems were resolved, right? Wrong.

According to the state Treasury Department, at least 72,000 unemployment payments or debit cards have been canceled over the last year because of fraud.

For many — including some Tribune-Review staffers — the tip-off that something was awry came in the form of a check in the mailbox or a confused call from human resources.

Let’s be clear: Any scam where the victim ends up getting the money was not well thought out. Unlike the classic of applying for someone’s federal tax return and having it pocketed by the time the victim tries to apply, this is leaving a lot of money on the table.

Unfortunately, while the number of failed attempts is known, there’s no way of knowing how many were successful.

”Due to ongoing investigations, (the state Department of Labor and Industry) does not currently have an estimate of the amount of fraudulent claims,” spokeswoman Sarah DeSantis said.

What it does seem like is someone has underestimated the effort some people will expend to get money by any means necessary.

The attorney general, the IRS, the state police — just about every state and federal agency regularly issues warnings about what the latest scam is. The federal relief money made available in 2020 for coronavirus-related problems, including expanded unemployment, have been looted almost from the moment they were announced.

It’s also an incident that seems to be increasing. The Identity Theft Resource Center reported more unemployment insurance identity theft so far in

2021 than in all of 2020.

So if it has been a known issue, why hasn’t the state been able to address it? One would hope the new system would be better able to defend against fraudulent claims than the previous one. But more importantly, why is the state not better alerting the people to the potential problem? The Trib knows about it because our colleagues were affected.

The state says people who cash the fraudulent checks will have to pay the money back. That makes sense, but it also seems like a better use of state effort to prevent the checks from being issued in the first place.

— The Tribune-Review, Greensburg/TNS