He went without unemployment money when account was frozen and no one could tell him why
Updated Feb 17, 2021;
Posted Feb 17, 2021
After Bank of America froze Joe Pagano s unemployment debit card, the bank said it was at the request of the Labor Department. But the state said it wasn t them. (Courtesy Joe Pagano)
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Joe Pagano relies on unemployment benefits to pay his bills.
But when he went to check the balance on his account, funded through a Bank of America debit card, on Jan. 4, he learned the account was frozen.
He immediately got on the phone.
“When I called the bank they said that New Jersey had requested a freeze on my account for fraud protection, however when I spoke to Unemployment on Jan. 5 they denied having put in such a request,” Pagano said.
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Cinch I.T. received triple the amount of technology help requests it would typically get, with workers running into any number of challenges getting set up remotely. The timing was fortuitous for the company: It had already planned an expansion last year and was ready for the flood of help requests.
“Fortunately, it s been largely positive for us,” said Rick Porter, Cinch I.T.’s president. “Not that it s been easy.”
Porter, who started at Cinch I.T. in 2010 and bought the company five years later, had already helped develop a franchising plan last year to expand the company beyond New England.