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When it comes to lowdown, scummy crimes, you’d be hard pressed to beat this: Credit card thieves being thwarted by enhanced security measures like smart chips have recently switched their marks to people who use CalFresh/CalWORKS EBT cards, meaning these lowlifes are stealing from some of the state’s neediest residents.

CalFresh, the state’s version of the program formerly known as Food Stamps, helps low-income households in California buy food with benefits distributed monthly through electronic benefits transfer (EBT) cards, which work like debit cards. 

California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) functions similarly, with welfare recipients getting their benefits automatically loaded onto their EBT cards each month.

Over the last five years or so, scammers have employed a variety of tricks to steal EBT card benefits, including hidden cameras and “skimmers”: electronic devices placed over credit card terminals to steal account numbers and pins.

A local CalFresh worker who asked to remain anonymous told the Outpost via email that there has been a dramatic uptick this month in clients reporting missing benefits.

One client, for example, came into the office assuming he needed to turn in a new form or resolve some technical issue because he hadn’t received his April benefits. 

“He had,” the local worker told us, “but they had been skimmed – over $600, his monthly [CalFresh] allotment, [was stolen] on April 1st at 9 a.m., the day his benefits issued.

Monique Upshaw-Smith, social services program manager II with the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services, said that while EBT card theft is being seen across the country and the state, there has been a noticeable uptick in Humboldt County this month.

“As a county, we were seeing around 15 to 25 cases of electronic theft a month,” Upshaw-Smith said via email. “At the beginning of April there was an increase.” The local CalFresh worker said the Eureka office could be getting five to 30 reports of skimmed benefits per day.

“Another thing that made this month different was that the benefits were being stolen on the person’s issuance day,” Upshaw-Smith said.

Theresa Mier, a spokesperson for the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), said EBT skimming didn’t emerge as a serious trend until late 2021, around the time most major credit cards started employing security chip technology.

As seen in the graph below, rates of such theft (and associated reimbursement) have skyrocketed since then to more than $10 million in taxpayer money per month.

According to a recent CalMatters story, in early 2020 the CDSS planned to hire investigators to focus on EBT theft while, separately, county welfare fraud investigators asked the department to add security chips to EBT cards, but neither occurred.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration committed to making California the first state to issue chip-enabled EBT cards, but implementation has been delayed more than once. Asked specifically when chip cards will be issued, Mier’s statement simply says implementation is expected to commence later this year.

“Additionally,” her statement says, “the Department continues to work with local, state, and federal law enforcement authorities to mitigate the theft of EBT benefits by blocking suspicious transactions, identifying potential perpetrators, and locating where skimmers have been placed. Multiple investigations are currently ongoing and arrests have been made.”

The department also produced the following public service announcement:

Upshaw-Smith had this advice for local victims of theft:

If an individual suspects their benefits have been stolen, they can call, come into a DHHS office or use BenefitsCal.com to submit a request for replacement benefits and have their EBT card canceled and replaced. They can also call the EBT hotline number listed on the back of their card to make a report and get a new card issued but they still need to contact the county or use BenefitsCal to submit the replacement request.

People can also use the ebtEDGE website or app to view their balance and transaction history and freeze or unfreeze their card, block out-of-state usage and order replacement cards. ebtEDGE is operated by our EBT vendor and is the only officially approved app for California EBT cardholders.

The state also has an EBT Customer Service Line at (877) 328-9677, which recipients can use to cancel their EBT card and request a new one.