Transparency

When you apply for benefits from your unemployment fund, you have a legal duty to disclose all the information that we need to determine your eligibility and calculate your allowance.

You must also let your unemployment fund know as soon as possible of any changes in your circumstances that could affect your eligibility or the amount of your allowance. Examples of these kinds of changes include starting a job, receiving a wage or other compensation, running a business, studying and other social benefits.

Please contact us if you are not sure whether a circumstance or a change in your circumstances affects your entitlement to benefits from us. We are here to help.

Investigations into suspected abuse of benefits

An unemployment fund that discovers that a member has provided false information or failed to mention something relevant has a duty to investigate whether this was done deliberately in order to defraud the benefits system. If this happens to you, we will send you a consultation letter and ask you to give your side of the story in your response. We will take your response into consideration in our assessment of whether or not the suspicions of benefit fraud were founded.

Penalties

Unemployment funds can give a caution or a warning to a member who is found to have provided false information or concealed a material fact. In more serious cases, the member can be expelled.

If an unemployment fund suspects that a member has withheld information deliberately or knowingly given false information, the case will be reported to the police. The police need not usually be alerted if the situation can be put down to the member’s ignorance, carelessness or an honest mistake.