With a swipe at the checkout line, scammers are using skimmers to steal information from cards used to buy groceries with help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. And there has been an uptick in reports of thefts of those food benefits in Massachusetts, state officials warn.
SNAP benefits, sometimes referred to as food stamps, are accessed through an EBT card. The most common types of theft involve data being stolen through card skimming devices placed on card machines at check-out, or phishing scams that steal the victims’ personal information, the state Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) said.
In Massachusetts, more than five thousand claims were submitted between October and December of last year, with more than $2 million dollars in benefits replaced, records show. But now, low-income families who are robbed of their grocery funds are no longer able to be reimbursed…