Lily Kondratyuk recounted how she was humiliated two years ago when she went to buy groceries totaling $200 at a local Market Basket and was denied the use of her EBT card. “I felt very sad and ashamed,” Kondratyuk said. “The children are waiting for food and I didn’t know what to do.”
On the other hand, Lynn, a mother of three, discovered that she had been a victim of identity theft. She stated that someone obtained her EBT card information and spent $700 on SNAP benefits. “They took everything, the entire amount,” she said.
Offenders who use skimming devices and phishing scams have been stealing money from EBT cards for many years. According to 2023 data from the Department of Agriculture, 59,576 households of United States citizens were affected by benefit theft. SNAP the previous year, while the federal government had to spend approximately 30 million dollars to replace the funds that were stolen.
Stolen SNAP Benefits: How to Get Them Replaced?
The Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance said it received 1,529 claims for stolen SNAP benefits in 2023, and the state helped reimburse many of the victims, using federal funds to replace $1 million in stolen benefits. .
“We still see it as a persistent problem that some recipients are still experiencing,” said Birabwa Kajubi, associate commissioner for Quality Management at the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance. “The most immediate action step is for users to change their PIN, that is if they think their information may be compromised.”
The DTA has a reporting section on its website https://www.mass.gov/how-to/report-stolen-benefits-to-dta if you believe you are a victim of scam or theft.
Some Steps to Protect Your Benefits, Recommended by the DTA
- Change your EBT card PIN every time you get your DTA benefits
- If you receive TAFDC or EAEDC, you can contact your case manager to ask if your benefits will be deposited into your bank account.
- Never give your personal information, EBT card number, or personal identification number (PIN) to unidentified callers or a link sent via text message or email.
“It is despicable and unconscionable that there are groups of people stealing money from families on SNAP,” said Vicky Negus, a policy advocate at the Massachusetts Legal Reform Institute, a nonprofit legal services organization in Boston. Negus noted that has been in contact with many of the residents of the state of Massachusetts who could not give him foodbasic to their families because they were victims of robbery.
“A mother called me on my cell phone at 10:30 pm sobbing, she was in the checkout line and trying to get thedecision “What to do because she was doing last-minute food shopping for her children and the dollars she was hoping to use had been stolen,” expressed Negus.
Most EBT cards do not have a chip or listening technology, and that’s why cardholders can only swipe their cards at checkout, leaving them open to credit card scammers, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, filed aproject Of law last March that would require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to add fraud-resistant chip technology to EBT cards.
“Families are vulnerable to theft because they have been turned into a second-class group of consumers in the checkout line,” Negus said. “And until that is fixed, they will continue to be at risk.”