A Florida man says his food stamp benefits were drained from his card, with more than 2,800 dollars spent at Target stores and supermarkets up in Maryland, all on a single day. The man, identified as Pahilwani, says he had his card with him at the time and had been driving for Uber in Florida that day, far from where the money was being spent.
Pahilwani describes being stunned when he realized what had happened. He says he was frozen and had to re-log into his account just to see if it was true or if he was dreaming. The charges, all racked up in one day at stores in another state, left him struggling to understand how his benefits had been taken.
According to his account, Pahilwani called the Florida Department of Children and Families right away, since that agency issues the funds and the cards. His old card was canceled and a new card has since arrived. He says he also went to the police, but that they would not take his complaint because the matter is federal.
Jocelyn Armand, who is with Legal Services of Greater Miami, says this kind of case is common and can happen through card skimming and cloning. She explains that while food stamps are funded federally, it is up to individual states to decide whether they will replenish stolen funds for people who have been targeted.
In Florida, Armand says, there is not a state-specific fund to reimburse stolen benefits, and so sometimes there is no resolution for the victim. She says her office can help someone file a claim with the state to try to get the funds restored, but that even then it is not guaranteed to work.
Armand says there are protections people can set on their accounts, including blocking a card from being used and then reactivating it only when it is needed, or blocking transactions that come from out of state. Pahilwani says he has changed his settings to include those protections. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the SNAP program, said the agency does not yet know why this card was compromised, but that the administration is committed to strengthening EBT card security in the future.