TALLAHASSEE, Fla — Pegasus, also known as Pega, is a mobile-friendly website the DEO rolled out last year during the first few months of pandemonium when CONNECT couldn’t keep up with the number of users attempting to apply for benefits.
“I am extremely frustrated because why are we now going into Pegasus?” asked Christine Egitto, who is trying to apply for MEUC, a new program for mixed earners.
If you’ve recently applied for benefits — you may have used Pega but most people have long forgotten about the backup website. But it’s back again, this time in a much bigger way.
“We had to go into Pegasus which was another third-party application to try and sign up for MEUC when everything else we’ve done is on connect,” said Martin Fuchs, who is also trying to apply for MEUC.
We first told you about the new program at the end of December. To qualify you must be self-employed or a gig worker who made at least $5,000 in net income for the most recent tax year, receiving wages through both 1099 and W2.
The program will pay those who qualify $100 extra per week but will not exceed the maximum benefit amount of $275. This is on top of the $300 they’d receive through the extension of PUA. MEUC expires on September 26th.
We asked the DEO why it chose to use Pega instead of CONNECT to roll out the new MEUC program — we haven’t received a reason but folks say they’re already experiencing major issues during the application process.
Once you log in and start the application it takes you to ID.Me to begin uploading documents.
“I can’t get through that and the frustration is a nightmare,” said Egitto.
Egitto says ID.Me tells her the documents she’s uploaded are complete and she can go back to the application but when she does, the link to ID.Me is still there and when you click it, she says it starts the process over again.
Linda Roberts says the wait time for a video conference with the ID.Me is more than 4 hours long.
“Finally when I got down to the one and a half hour bracket it kept changing it would say like an hour and 40 minutes and then it would go up to an hour and 42 minutes and then it would go down,” she said which meant she never really knew how long the wait really was.
Fuchs made it through that, “After the verification process the claim disappeared off of Pega. There’s no record that I’ve ever applied.”
We’ve sent summaries of all three of these folks into the DEO for help.
If you still need help, fill out ABC Action News' spreadsheet sent daily to the DEO.
