Staff WriterThe Department of Economic Opportunity sent five unemployment checks to the home of 25-year-old Allison Crock last month but the Orlando single mom discovered every check was made to the order of Allison Clark.
“They have Allison right and Clark as my last name and it’s Crock,” she said.
Crock told the case of mistaken identity has left her penniless with no job options available to help make ends meet for her 5-year-old daughter.
“I’m really struggling,” Crock said from her father’s home. “I have food stamps and that’s about all I have.”
The Orlando woman worked for 7-Eleven for more than a year but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, she decided to walk away rather than risk infecting her daughter.
“Customers were coming in without masks,” she recalled. “It was too risky.”
Crock said several attempts to get the identity mistake corrected by the Department of Economic Opportunity ended with confusing advice.
She recalled a DEO employee said she could “void out the checks” but when she asked if she would get checks with the right name he replied, “Well, we don’t know about that.”