Free app helping people file for unemployment benefits
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - It’s an app that usually helps people fight parking tickets and appeal bank fees, but now, it’s helping people apply for unemployment.
“All my bills are on extensions, I don’t know how I am going to pay my bills, or my rent or eat, to tell you the truth,” said Joe Acosta, a restaurant cook.
Acosta has been out of work for a month now. He immediately applied for unemployment but still hasn’t gotten his check. The 38-year-old hopes he did everything right because he says, the process was frustrating.
“First, I tried to call and you couldn’t get through, I got up early in the morning and still couldn’t get through, then I finally went online and filled it out online and it took me about three times to actually get it done because as I was filling it out, it kept crashing,” said Acosta.
Acosta says, he spent nine hours in total trying to get his application in but a tech company promises to do it in just fie minutes. It’s called DoNotPay.
“The state websites are broken, you can’t get through on the phone, so this seemed like the perfect area to use our existing expertise to help solve this new problem,” said Joshua Browder, Founder, DoNotPay.
Browder says the app makes a daunting process, simple for the user.
“DoNotPay will ask the user a few questions about their situation, including uploading their past pay stubs and personal details and it uses all that information to create an unemployment application,” said Browder.
The app then submits the application for you.
“If the states website isn’t working, it will keep trying to submit automatically, so you can sit back and relax, knowing that your application will be submitted,” said Browder.
If you need to contact the government by phone, the app will help with that too.
“This feature will basically phone-up the government for you, wait on hold for six hours and then when an agent finally comes on the line, it forwards the call to you,” said Browder.
The company reports 15,000 unemployment applications have been processed using it’s app, more than 1,000 of those in Florida.
We asked the founder, why the app is free? He explains, the idea is for users to download the app and see the other features it offers at a cost.