![]() “The arrests were the result of a joint investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and Bank of America corporate security,” reads a September 2022 story from The Sacramento Bee. The men allegedly installed deep insert skimmers, and stole PINs using tiny hidden cameras. In September, authorities in California arrested three men thought to be part of a skimming crew that specifically targeted EBT cards and balances. Oddly enough, both are reliant on the same fundamentally insecure technology: The magnetic stripe, which stores cardholder data in plain text that can be easily copied. The Massachusetts SNAP benefits card looks more like a library card than a payment card. First, most states do not equip EBT cards with smart chip technology, which can make payment cards much more difficult and expensive for skimming thieves to clone.Īlas, it is no accident that all of the states reporting recent spikes in fraud tied to EBT accounts - including California, Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia appear to currently issue chip-less cards to their EBT recipients. However, EBT cards differ from debit cards issued to most Americans in two important ways. EBT is used in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam.ĮBT cards work just like regular debit cards, in that they can be used along with a personal identification number (PIN) to pay for goods at participating stores, and to withdraw cash from an ATM. When a participant uses a SNAP payment card at an authorized retail store, their SNAP EBT account is debited to reimburse the store for food that was purchased. states have reported rapid increases in skimming losses tied to people who receive assistance via Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT), which allows a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participant to pay for food using SNAP benefits. Over the past several months, authorities in multiple U.S. California’s EBT card does not currently include a chip. ![]()
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