Georgia SNAP recipients say hackers wiped out their EBT cards

CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — SNAP recipients across Georgia are facing a tough challenge, as hackers have reportedly wiped out funds from their food assistance cards, leaving many without essential support.

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It was nearly $1,000 Branaita Jones says a thief took from her Georgia SNAP account hundreds of miles away.

“I called the food stamp people and they said somebody took my food stamps in New York,” Jones told Channel 2′s Investigative Reporter Ashli Lincoln.

The Department of Human Services says recipients like Jones are one of thousands who’ve reported stolen funds from their EBT cards.

“Children hungry. I want to cry so bad. It hurt my feelings so bad when they took my stamps,” she said.

The Georgia Department of Human Services announced plans last October to help Georgia food stamp beneficiaries who were victims of fraud. In the time since they’ve replaced about $3 million in benefits they say were stolen or skimmed.

The announcement focused on how Georgians who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding whose benefits were stolen.

DHS told Channel 2 Action News that 7,040 claims for replacement benefits had been submitted since Oct. 19, 2023, and more than 5,600 had been approved, according to data through Sept. 15.

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Since last fall, DHS said they’d issued “more than $2.9 million in replacement benefits.”

All of the claims resulted from “SNAP benefits being skimmed or stolen by other fraudulent means.”

To protect their SNAP benefits, DHS said beneficiaries should:

• Never share sensitive information with an unsolicited requestor.
• Be wary of publicly posting information such as birthdays, children or pet names, workplaces, where you grew up, and other personal historical information on social media. Doing so can let scammers successfully answer challenge questions and reset passwords on your accounts without needing to interact with you at all.
• DHS customers should maintain strong, unique passwords for their Georgia Gateway accounts and never share personal account information with anyone who is not a designated caregiver.
• Save DHS’ primary phone number 877-423-4746 in your phone contacts. That way, when you need to reach out, you’ll have the correct phone number immediately available to you.
• If you suspect that a call you receive is a scam, hang up and call DHS directly using the phone number you saved in your contacts.
• If you suspect that an email, text message, website, or social media page/account is a scam, don’t open any links or attachments that you see. Instead, call DHS directly or go to the website at dhs.georgia.gov.
• Be advised that DHS may serve you via social media, but over the phone, they will ask for your social security number and banking information for verification and when submitting a new application.

If you think you’ve been the victim of a scam involving your public benefits, DHS says to contact their Office of Inspector General at 877-423-4746, option 4, or email them.

SNAP fraud victims can request replacement benefits online here.

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