I had never heard of this, and I'm a WA state taxpayer...
so admittedly having only read the article, I'm familiar with the theory that there's a number of fraud organizations out there that were in possession of the most vital personal data (name/DOB/SSN) that submitted false claims in 2020 during the earliest stages of the covid19 response, and got payments redirected to money mule ACH deposit accounts.
this happened in more locations than just WA.
one of the sketchiest things you can find on the internet, if you take time to research it, is the number of scammers posting "job openings" for things like a "accounts processing executive" for full WFH jobs. a certain percentage of gullible or entry level people who are too naive to know better fall for it. the general concept is to create a legit US domestic bank account that can receive ACH transfers and then forward the money onward somewhere else. usually ending up in some form of overseas account or cryptocurrency from which it cannot be retrieved.
I was furious when I heard of this back in 2020, and I'm a WA state taxpayer.
The ESD Commissioner job was handed out as a political patronage gift. The person who was running the show has "failed upward" and is now in Washington DC.
One-party government sucks. "Yeah but the other party is worse" is irrelevant.
Voting in Washington is really abhorrent. I read the last Republican Governor Nominee's bio and platform in the voting guide and was just surprised that he thought he was qualified to be Governor in a state with 7 million people. I don't really see why solid blue states or solid red states can not be an opportunity to innovate on platform and see what works, instead it seems qualified candidates just don't exist or give up
It's absolutely relevant how much worse the other party is. If they weren't so hostile to government[0] and thus the people they might serve as a check on the party in power. I sincerely wish I had a choice in all elections, but sadly most of them are between someone that will probably be OK and someone that I fear will shoot up the capital if they don't get what they want.
so admittedly having only read the article, I'm familiar with the theory that there's a number of fraud organizations out there that were in possession of the most vital personal data (name/DOB/SSN) that submitted false claims in 2020 during the earliest stages of the covid19 response, and got payments redirected to money mule ACH deposit accounts.
this happened in more locations than just WA.
one of the sketchiest things you can find on the internet, if you take time to research it, is the number of scammers posting "job openings" for things like a "accounts processing executive" for full WFH jobs. a certain percentage of gullible or entry level people who are too naive to know better fall for it. the general concept is to create a legit US domestic bank account that can receive ACH transfers and then forward the money onward somewhere else. usually ending up in some form of overseas account or cryptocurrency from which it cannot be retrieved.