The US Department of Agriculture has spent the past week notifying people that the country is (allegedly) overrun by individuals who are fraudulently claiming SNAP benefits, while (allegedly) driving luxury vehicles.
“In just ONE state, 14,000 individuals receiving SNAP benefits were driving LUXURY VEHICLES!” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins posted on X last week. The official USDA account made similar claims, which were then amplified by figures like Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Rand Paul.
Those numbers are questionable at best. For one thing, the report they come from doesn’t name the state where thousands of people are allegedly buying Ferraris while using government money to buy food. For another, that report doesn’t include any explanation of its methodology.
The “luxury vehicle” angle is clearly a scam, but there is evidence of SNAP fraud, at least here in Oregon, it’s just being done with card skimmers stealing legitimate SNAP data and funds from the people who need it most:
https://www.doj.state.or.us/media-home/news-media-releases/attorney-general-rayfield-issues-consumer-alert-scammers-targeting-oregonians-with-ebt-skimmers/
"How the scam works
Scammers place an overlay device on card readers or keypads, often at smaller retailers such as dollar stores or community markets.
These devices look nearly identical to real machines but secretly collect card numbers and PINs.
Stolen card data is then used in other states to purchase high-demand items like baby formula or resold goods"
The fix for this should be simple: EBT funds should only be accessible in the state where the card was issued.
The solution to robbing from poor people should not be robbing them of more of their benefit.
The fix is just giving them actual money.
I wouldn’t be a fan of blocking access of OR/WA folk from buying something if they cross the river, let alone all the interstate travel that happens on the East Coast.
True, but if an Oregon card is being used in New York, that’s a problem.
So what you’re saying is people in need are getting their benefits stolen. That’s not at all what the administration is claiming or expressing concern about.
Nope, still fraud, just not on the part of the benefit holder.
So if these machines are skimming all cards numbers/pins then surely the answer is to restrict everyone’s cards, credit, debit, everything to their own state?
Why is it your logic that only the poor people need to be restricted because other people are stealing from them? Where’s the logic in going after the victims of fraud?
Other cards already have these protections, the EBT cards do not. That’s the problem.
If they were secured the same way as credit/debit cards we wouldn’t be seeing this problem.
I should say too… EBT cards are already restricted as far as what they can be used for, it only makes sense to flag where they can be used as well.
So then protect the cards without excessive restrictions that aren’t put on other cards. Freedom of movement is a human right so to restrict someone’s essential payment method state to state seems like a breach of that.
Again, EBT cards are already restricted.
https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items
They just aren’t restricted in a way that would prevent stealing the funds.
Sucks for people like my mom then, who lives in a 600 person town on the border of two states, with no grocery stores or even gas stations for almost an hour north or east deepeer into “her” state, but with a Stop and Shop 11 minutes down the road in the neighbor state. But you’re right, we don’t want the poors being allowed to just roam free, ya?
Your opinion is ignorant of people’s real life situations.
Then you set it up in the account so it’s only valid in user specified states.
That is not a sollution. That’s wildly restrictive, discriminatory, and overly complicated. Card skimming is theft, not fraud, for one thing, and that’s a problem that effects any card that runs through it, not just EBT. It’s the store’s problem for not providing a safe means to conduct transactions, and the burden shouldn’t be placed on the most vulnerable populations. Cash and even debit cards don’t need permission to be used outside of some designated range.
You’re out of touch and need to practice your empathy skills.
If a user sets it up so “I only use the card in Oregon and Washington”, that should block it from, say, New York or Florida. I really isn’t rocket science.
A payment processor was compromised and my debit card info was caught in Berlin which prompted a call from my bank going “Heeeeyyy… you aren’t trying to buy a Eurorail pass in Germany, are you?”
Yeah, no. They cancelled the card and issued a new one. The use pattern was out of the ordinary. Same thing should be applied here.
Cute story.
I once told a bank i was going to spend a summer working in Alaska and not to be alarmed when my card started having transactions there. They said “okay!” Then they frozen my card after my first use and when I called them to see why (they didn’t call me) they said “suspicious activity on your card, it was used in Alaska!” Then on my return trip home, it was skimmed and used in NYC while I was on a bus in Arizona, I called the bank (again, they didn’t call me) and said hey there’s a weird charge on my card in NYC, but im in Arizona, and they said “huh weird, I guess we’ll freeze it if you want”.
Genuinely so happy your bank was so attentive to you. That’s not the normal. It is cruel and irresponsible to put restrictions on people’s food cards, especially the way the pedophile and his cronies are gutting government offices. It’s really hard to get in touch with someone from the EBT department, by design.
Say ive authorized my food card to be used in OR/WA. But what if I’m in Idaho for the weekend unexpectedly, but i need something to eat? What if I’m driving down to visit a relative in NoCal who is on a fixed income and doesnt have enough food for me and i want to pick up some milk and eggs once i get to california so i dont have to worry about keeping them cold? What if I live on the VT/MA border, so I authorize those states, but there’s something I need to do in New York, and going to a MA or VT grocery store after going all the way to NY to run an errand would be miles out of my way and I just want to go to the grocery store in NYS, but uh oh, I didn’t authorize that state and I can’t get a hold of anyone other than a robot on the phone at the ebt office and gas is five fucking dollars a gallon and I can’t afford to drive all over the tri state area, so I guess i’ll just be fucking hungry again today.
Stop trying to die on this hill. You’re suggestion is a bad idea, not because you’re a bad person (giving you thr botd, but losing faith fast) but because you lack the life experiences and have experienced privilege that clouds your judgement.
Maybe you’re a troll and I’m giving you exactly what you want, so this will be my last comment, but if you’re being genuine, please try to see things from someone else’s view. It is a bad idea to put restrictions on a food card. It’s for FOOD. The rates of theft and fraud are over represented by bad actors like the republicans.
Not a troll, just explaining how the system works with current debit cards and SHOULD work with EBT cards.
Here’s the breach that got me:
https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/subway-breach-exposes-pos-vulnerabilities-a-5125
I wonder how many stores have checking for skimmers as part of their daily workflows.
Not enough apparently. 😔