PA sees increase in EBT, SNAP benefit fraud — Here’s what you should know

Officials with the Erie County Assistance Office, which handles human services work for the region, said they’ve seen widespread mishandled Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) funds and fraudulent activity associated with those programs.

For example, one local man said he discovered his balance was being spent in Texas, despite never leaving Erie.

Other people shared similar stories.

“We’re seeing instances of skimming, which is the act of applying a device to a point-of-sale machine like a card reader or an ATM in an effort to read a card’s magnetic strip, gather its data and create a cloned card,” said Brandon Cwalina, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS).

Beyond that, there have been attempted text scams, where criminals try to get your information from you by telling you your account is locked.

However, DHS will never ask for any of your personal information directly.

“We take fraud prevention very seriously. We know that SNAP is the country’s most important food security program, so we need to make sure that people who need SNAP benefits receive them,” said Cwalina.

If you find yourself the victim of a benefits-related scam, there’s hope.

A recent policy passed by Governor Josh Shapiro allows for stolen funds to be replaced, but it takes time.

“So you have 60 days after the incident to report the theft. We take up to 30 days to verify that, and after we verify it, it takes up to 10 days to replace. It’s a maximum of 40 days, but we do try to expedite things as much as we possibly can because, again, this is folk’s food assistance,” said Cwalina.

People in need of food assistance can reach out to Feeding Pennsylvania to find local food banks if in need of immediate help if you’ve been impacted.

For more information, click here .

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