CLEVELAND — Federal help for food-stamp theft victims is ending – but the problem isn’t.
Congress just let a reimbursement program lapse for victims of electronic benefits theft. An extension didn’t make it into the short-term spending bill that lawmakers passed late Friday to avert a government shutdown.
Now Ohio food stamp, or SNAP, recipients whose accounts are drained by thieves won’t have a way to get that money back. Reimbursement is still available in cases where the theft took place before Dec. 21 if victims apply within the next few months.
Meanwhile, theft reports are still climbing in Cuyahoga County.
Since the start of this month, the county has received a record-high 2,051 requests for reimbursement. Last December, officials only received 33.
Kevin Gowan, the county’s director of job and family services, described the uptick as “alarming” during a recent news conference. The county is on track to repay $1.5 million to $1.6 million in stolen benefits this month, using the federal money that’s drying up.
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Electronic benefits theft is happening in waves across the country as sophisticated criminals use skimmers and other gadgets to steal EBT card numbers and PINs.
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More than 313,000 households have been hit – some of them multiple times, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the SNAP program.
The USDA says taxpayers have repaid more than $150 million in stolen benefits. And that’s a lagging number. It only goes through the third quarter of 2024.
In Ohio, more than 25,000 theft victims have received replacement benefits over the last two years.
Congress created the repayment program in late 2022 as card skimming incidents soared. SNAP experts and advocates had hoped to see it extended, but that provision didn't survive a week of roller-coaster negotiations in Washington, D.C.
So far, Ohio isn’t stepping in to fill the gap created by the end of the federal reimbursement program.
In response to a question about possible state-level solutions, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services encouraged cardholders to be vigilant.
“We strongly urge all Ohioans on SNAP to take steps to protect their benefits and beware of skimming devices,” Tom Betti, the spokesman, wrote in an email.
Those steps include:
- Never share your card number or PIN with anyone.
- Downloading the state-sanctioned ConnectEBT app, which allows cardholders to temporarily lock their card and then unlock it at the grocery store checkout.
- Sign up for transaction alerts on your account and watch them closely.
- Changing your PIN often, ideally right before your monthly benefits payment comes in.
- Inspecting and tugging on card readers at stores for skimmers – replica covers taped onto or otherwise attached to point-of-sale devices.
- Looking for fake keypads on top of card readers or pinhole cameras nearby.
- Letting store employees know if something about a card reader seems unusual.
- Shielding the keypad on the point-of-sale device to make sure nobody can see your PIN when you’re typing it in.
Skimming isn’t just a problem for SNAP recipients. It also can happen to people with credit cards and debit cards. But banks and credit card companies provide protections for customers, and they've upgraded to cards with chip technology. It’s harder to siphon data off chip cards and clone them.
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The federal government has been slow to add chip technology to EBT cards, which just have magnetic stripes. California and Oklahoma are moving forward on their own, with plans to issue chip cards next year.
Ohio has been waiting for federal action – and federal money to pay for the upgrades.
If you were a victim of electronic SNAP benefits theft before Dec. 21, you can fill out this form and submit it to your county’s job and family services office.
