More than 2,600 Oklahoma households victimized by SNAP benefit theft

More than 2,600 Oklahoma households are on the receiving end of SNAP benefit theft.

Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS) said between July of 2023 and June 2024, they've replaced more than $1.4 million in benefits due to skimming, cloning and phishing scams.

They said this is a problem in every state across the country and the USDA has approved replacing that stolen money through the end of September.

Many people went to Facebook with their concerns to make sure they weren't the only ones experiencing this fraud.

“This happened to me literally a couple days ago, had to get a new one,” one user said.

“They stole my daughter's 2 months in a row,” another said.

One mother reached out to FOX23, saying "I just hope that they fix the situation so that I can feed my kids since I’m in between jobs right now and it’s making my life hard.”

FOX23 reached out to DHS about the statewide issues.

DHS sent the following statement:

"Oklahoma Human Services is dedicated to helping our clients protect their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Like all states across the nation, Oklahoma is facing continued issues with all types of card fraud, including fraud relating to credit, debit and SNAP cards. Oklahoma Human Services continues to actively work with local, state, and federal agencies in their ongoing efforts to address some of the latest benefit theft schemes and is unable to offer comment as it could negatively affect the ongoing investigations."

DHS said to keep your card safe, you should treat it like any other card. That means you should never share your card information with anyone else, choose a PIN that is hard to guess and download the ConnectEBT app where you can lock your SNAP card in between purchases.

DHS also said to never respond to text messages or phone calls asking for your card information. You should also check card readers at the checkout counter to ensure they haven’t been tampered with and using mobile SNAP payments, when you can, to reduce the risk of skimming and other fraud.

The USDA approved replacing stolen money through the end of September.

DHS said they are working on launching chip-enabled cards which should be ready next summer.

The ConnectEBT app can be downloaded on any smart phone and can also be accessed by clicking here . For help logging into your ConnectEBT account, call 405-522-5050. You can report fraud at that number as well.