Howard County is one of the most populous counties in America, as it's part of the DC, Baltimore, NOVA metropolitan area. Unfortunately for its residents, it's also one of the poorest counties in America. Roughly half of the residents in the county and surrounding metro area are on food stamps, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Another unfortunate thing for residents of Howard County on SNAP is that there has been quite a lot of theft lately. Thieves in the area are literally hacking the EBT cards of the SNAP recipients and draining their accounts. EBT stands for "Electronic Benefits Transfer," and it's a debit card given to SNAP recipients.

The original idea behind handing out debit cards was to help with the stigma poor Americans faced when turning over physical food stamps at a grocery store. Beyond that point, it just became more convenient for the government. The food stamps program is America's crown jewel of welfare; it's the most successful program. So to have fraud involved is a serious issue. Over 42 million Americans are currently on SNAP benefits, and so if this EBT theft were to increase in popularity, there are potentially tens of millions of Americans who won't be able to afford groceries, while a lot of thieves out there will be making a fortune in re-selling food items.

The issue arose a few months ago when dozens of residents of Howard County went to purchase groceries yet did not have funds remaining in their SNAP accounts. In late August, it was reported that over $178,000 was stolen from SNAP, which is nearly doubled compared to how much theft happened in 2021. Yes, there has long been theft involved in the food stamps program, but now it's really getting out of control, and thieves are discovering new ways to essentially hack the EBT cards of poor people. It's a morally repugnant crime, to say the least.

This is a growing trend, and to date tens of millions of dollars have been stolen from EBT cards. In many cases, family members and friends will steal the physical card, max it out, and then return it to the original recipient, unbeknownst to them. Though there are also more sophisticated ways that thieves are tracking and stealing EBT information, such as physical card-reader scanners placed into the devices, and also RFID scanners targeting cards of poor people who likely can't afford a fancy RFID-blocking wallet; or they may not even know such technology exists. It really is becoming a huge problem, and the reason word is spreading around Howard County is that there are so many poor people who live there who may be at risk of not being able to afford groceries if they money is stolen.

According to the FDA, some of this theft isn't theft at all but rather false claims from SNAP recipients who are trying to get extra money. However, this is only a small fraction of the problem, and most of those people are promptly caught trying to game the system. The real issue is in EBT information theft.
 

Always Protect Your SNAP Benefits

If you are a SNAP recipient, it is your job to protect your EBT card. No one can step in and do this for you. The government uses the same basic technology that's already widely available for debit cards, so that the EBT cards can be read properly by the scanners and so they act just like other cards. So you're not going to see any sort of specialty card arise on the market. It's up to you to protect the card here, and you can do this with just a little extra vigilance.

For instance, it's recommended to always keep your card sleeved in your wallet or purse until which point you're going to use it. Don't just throw the card into your back pocket or carry it around in a shirt pocket. This makes it far easier for RFID scanners to steal the information off of the card. You should also be checking out those in-store card readers before swiping or inserting your card. If you see or feel anything extra on the machine, it's likely a physical scanner that someone installed in order to steal the information. Then all they have to do is access your pin. Speaking of your pin, change it often or at any time you suspect something may have happened.

There's no way to entirely eliminate the risk of theft, but you can greatly reduce it.