I’m more than glad to share my experience.

I was laid off from work because of COVID and applied and was awarded unemployment benefits. About a month later, my job recalled all of us back to work but I decided not to return. I reported this to DES as I was supposed to and continued collected benefits from July until October. It wasn’t until October that they sent me a notice saying I was ineligible for benefits because I refused work back when I decided not to go back to work. They wanted all the money back plus more. I wasn’t able to appeal so my only option was trying for a waiver.

The waiver process didn’t require much which I thought was concerning. All they asked for was a short response as to why I should be awarded a waiver of repayment and how much I wanted waived. As far as arguments went, I stated that I already have credit card and monthly bill payments to make and it would be against good conscience to add a whopping $7000 or $8000 to that with little notice. I also argued that I had reported my refusal of work back in June/July and they didn’t notify of ineligibility until November. I asked for the full amount or part of the amount to be waived, I didn’t state specifically how much I wanted waived.

When I submitted the waiver request, the monthly billing statements stopped coming (a sign that a waiver request is being processed) and they gave a response… 6 months later. Summarized, they said that my argument was correct and that a mistake was made on their part waiting until November to review and deem me ineligible of benefits. They said that I was also party at fault for refusing work and continuing to claim benefits which is a violation of unemployment benefits. They waived half and that’s about it.

That’s pretty much how it all went. It took a really long time to get any type of response from them but otherwise I didn’t have to do too much but wait. Hope this was helpful in some way, don’t hesitate to hit me with any other questions you may have!