'It's somewhat baffling.' San Antonio father asked to pay back unemployment he didn't get

A San Antonio father says he's being asked to pay back unemployment benefits he never got.

Frustrated about the request for repayment he reached out to Fox San Antonio's Problem Solver Darian Trotter to help clear things up.

When Anthony Buttitta lost his job as a certified personal trainer due to the pandemic, he was stressed out about the loss of wages.

"The question was what am I going to do now, do I need to start over again, do I need to go to square one," said San Antonio father Anthony Buttitta.

He says he was immediately worried about providing for his two young children.

"I want to make sure that they have food on the table," Buttitta said. "If it means I don't eat that's fine. But I just want to make sure I'm able to provide that and that was my overall concern, just being a father you know."

He applied and was approved for a 14-week extension of unemployment insurance benefits.

Anthony says he never received a single dime of it but has received repeated overpayment notices asking him to pay back money from December to February .

"Half of zero is zero," Buttitta said. "I don't know what you want me to pay back. I received nothing, how can I pay back something that I didn't receive overall."

Anthony says he's been trying without success the past two months to get through to a TWC specialist to clear things up.

Out of frustration, he reached out to our Problem Solver team.

"It's somewhat mindboggling," Buttitta said. "Was it something clerical, someone mistakenly checked a box not on my end but through the processing itself."

"Well, certainly, if they didn't get the money they would not be liable to pay that back," James Bernsen said.

James Bernsen with TWC says for privacy reasons, he can't discuss details of individual cases.

Generally speaking, he says mistakes due to high demand will eventually be cleared up by the work of investigators and appeals officers.

"So a lot of that will be cleared up when the system catches up," Bernsen said.

Bernsen says disputes related to overpayment can be appealed.

That's exactly what Anthony has been trying to do.

He showed us documentation of his appeals being closed out in error online.

He's just filed a 5th appeal.

"Which you can't talk to anyone it is a voice recording and you put your name and phone number and wait for somebody to call you back," Buttitta said.

After we got involved TWC has agreed to review Anthony's case.

The dedicated father says clearing things up will give him peace of mind to better focus on raising his two children.

"If I'm granted, hey you don't owe anything," Buttitta said. "Fantastic."