DES MOINES – The Iowa Department of Human Services recently announced a new procedure that is now in place for replacing multiple electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards to limit the potential for fraudulent activity in the Food Assistance program.
According to the state’s DHS website, starting August 29, if a Food Assistance recipient orders four or more replacement cards within a one-year period, they will receive a notice regarding multiple card replacement. The notice says that, should they order additional cards, they will be required to call the DHS Call Center and explain the reasons for replacing their EBT card so frequently. It will also note that they could be subject to investigation.
“Most Food Assistance recipients are using their benefits responsibly to feed their families, however, some individuals work to defraud the system by selling their cards to get cash to buy items that aren’t approved for purchase under the program,” said Wendy Rickman, head of the DHS division which oversees Food Assistance. “This new procedure allows us to more closely monitor who’s ordering multiple cards so we can better combat fraudulent activity.”
More than 400,000 Iowans receive Food Assistance each month through the federally-funded Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, or SNAP. Benefits depend on income, household size and expenses. People eligible for Food Assistance must be residents of Iowa who are U.S. citizens or legally qualified non-citizens such as refugees, and have household incomes that don’t exceed 160 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $31,000 gross annual income for a family of three. The average Food Assistance recipient in Iowa is a 25-year-old white female, and the average benefit per recipient was $1,413 annually in SFY2013.
This change in multiple card replacement procedure meets new federal regulations. Elderly and disabled populations will be exempted.
What a joke…
Oooooh. That sounds serious to me. I’m sure they’ll tow the line now!!!
About damn time they did something about this.
Do something about what?
Have any stats about lost cards being used fraudulently, or is that just your everybody-knows-it’s-true default position?
The big money in EBT cards comes from the state contracts with the banksters who process them. JP Morgan makes hundreds of millions in EBT contracts with various states.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/01/jp-morgan-s-food-stamp-empire.html
Of course, you wouldn’t want to rain on the parade of the captains of the “free…
@rahmbo-I don’t need stats. I have been approached many times at Fairway by these people wanting to trade me for things I want. They will buy two 12 packs of pop for a six pack of beer or trade for cigarettes. I have personally seen them trading food they have bought with food stamps for babysitting. I have watched people on food stamps cooking steaks and drinking alcohol while smoking pot. And you think I need stats. Get real. I have it going on right next door right now. They are able to
cont.-work (both of them) but don’t. They don’t even look for work as they do not care. They stay inside during the day other than when their supplier comes and play on our money all night long. I see it now and have seen it many times. It is people like you who enable these sponges. I have nothing at all against helping someone who needs it, but these leaches are stealing from the people who really need it. It is part of the dopper culture.
Your simpleton mind doesn’t understand that the present civic dynamic was created as a result of corporate factory farming, feudalistic rental barons snatching up properties, increase of law enforcement arresting and imprisoning millions of people, increased construction of prisons, privatization of prisons, increase of militarization of society and police forces, shipping jobs overseas. You’re too much of a moron to trace the genesis and evolution of an issue, you only want blood
@Philly-Once again, you are a practicing IDIOT working hard to be a moron. All you can do is copy and paste from your left wing sites. You are pre – programmed to being a leach on society and it doesn’t surprise me at all that a welfare baby like you would support welfare fraud. After all, it is what you live on.