What if I made a mistake in my EI report?

Don’t worry if you have made a mistake in your EI report. All you need to do is to call EI call centre to let the Service Canada agent know where you have made your mistake. You will not be penalized or be accused of fraud. For example, if you have made a mistake reporting your net income (income after deductions) instead of gross income, that means you will receive more EI weekly benefits than what should have paid you. Therefore, you have to correct that mistake by calling EI call centre. What the call centre agent will do is to ask you for the correct amount and calculate to right EI benefit amount to pay you. If you have been overpaid, then the excess amount will be deducted from your next EI payment. The decision will be made right away usually and there will be no interruption in your EI payment.

To learn how to properly complete your EI report at avoid a pending report issue, please visit our post: How to properly complete your EI report.

* * * Pending Report issue* * *

Once you have completed your EI report, if you have received a message asking you to call the 1-800 number, that means you have declared an answer that is not what the EI reporting system is expecting. It will require you to call the EI call centre to clear the report. Your payment will be held up until the report is cleared by the call centre agent. Unfortunately, the agents at your local Service Canada centres does not have the authority to clear a pending report.

New* You may now clear a pending report by sending an email request to Service Canada. Find out more How to clear a pending report through Service Canada E-form?

Mistake on your EI online application

If you have made a mistake during the application, you must give a call to EI call centre for correction. For example, if you have not reported that you are receiving CPP, what will happen is that EI will pay you your full weekly amount first, but then this information will be shared from pension office to EI office later. There will be an suspension in your claim for an agent to review your claim and calculate the overpayment. You will then have to pay back the amount owing. If you notify EI call centre within the 28 days processing time, interruption will not arise.

Lately during the COVID-19 pandemic event, there is a very common mistake that people are applying EI sickness benefits instead of regular benefits when they were temporarily laid off from work. If you have applied to the wrong benefit category, you must call EI call centre to switch your claim, if not, you will see your claim processing being delayed.

New* You may now clear a pending report by sending an email request to Service Canada. Find out more How to clear a pending report through Service Canada E-form?

More reading: EI Reporting Step by Step

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