A Family’s Thanksgiving Dinner Ruined by a SNAP Scam

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[00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

 [00:00:04] Georgete Papadimitrios: They pulled my transaction and had me go to the service desk. And I’m standing there with all this food, my baby in the carriage, just freaked out, embarrassed, upset. I don’t understand what’s happening.

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[00:00:23] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

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[00:00:28] Bob: Thanksgiving is a special time for family, food, for feeling grateful. It means a lot to today's guest Georgete Papadimitrios for reasons we'll get into in a moment. And that's why when Thanksgiving was essentially stolen from her, this struggling mom was hit with such a crushing blow, but when you hear about the highly organized crime Georgete was caught up in, your blood will boil because she was one of hundreds of thousands of victims who suffered when, well every American suffered when $150 million of taxpayer money was stolen by criminals, and it's still happening. Let's meet Georgete. As I mentioned, Thanksgiving means a lot to her.

[00:01:17] Georgete Papadimitrios: Yes, well, both of my parents are deceased. My mom died in 2000 and my father passed away in 2017, and I’m a single mom. I’m 2000 miles from family, friends, and everyone I know and love. Here I’m completely alone. So because my children are 5 and 2, I just want to instill in them how important family holidays are, spending time together as a family because growing up I had a big family, lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, and I just look lovingly back on my, you know, childhood and I, I want to do the best I can to give my children that same feeling I get when I think about Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and the ham and the turkeys and the, the food. I love to cook and I believe, you know, being Greek that uh food is like one of the biggest ways you can show love.

[00:02:09] Bob: What's your favorite Thanksgiving plate?

[00:02:10] Georgete Papadimitrios: I would have to say, I mean I love everything but the, you know, honey-glazed ham, mashed potatoes, some good turkey breast, and butternut squash.

[00:02:23] Bob: See, you've already gotten my attention, because nothing wrong with turkey, but I'm a big fan of ham, and so, you know...

[00:02:28] Georgete Papadimitrios: I love ham. (chuckles)

[00:02:30] Bob: Yeah, so honey-glazed ham is great.

[00:02:33] Georgete Papadimitrios: It doesn't get its due.

[00:02:36] Bob: Georgete lives in Texas, far away from her extended family for very practical reasons.

[00:02:44] Bob: So you, you uh, you're from New England. How long have you been in Texas?

[00:02:47] Georgete Papadimitrios: Um, since 2015.

[00:02:49] Bob: And, and what brought you there?

[00:02:51] Georgete Papadimitrios: Lower rent. It’s just the cost of living is much, much less than up there, that northeast corridor is very expensive.

[00:03:00] Bob: Very expensive, that's true, yeah, and I know that there's reasons why you're, I mean everyone's conscious of how expensive rent is nowadays, but, but you have reason to be even more conscious maybe than some other people, right?

[00:03:10] Georgete Papadimitrios: Yeah, my situation isn't perfect.

[00:03:13] Bob: So no one's is, right? But tell, tell me what's, what about your situation isn't perfect?

[00:03:17] Georgete Papadimitrios: I was born with a congenital heart defect, so because of that, as I aged into my 20s and into my 30s, my heart wasn’t doing so well. So I ended up actually needing a pacemaker, and I still have issues with my heart today because of that.

[00:03:38] Bob: And you've had several heart surgeries too, right?

[00:03:40] Georgete Papadimitrios: Yes, a pacemaker, several sinus node modifications and ablations and things like that.

[00:03:50] Bob: Hmm, that, I'm sure that's not an easy way to live, but this also impacts your ability to work, right?

[00:03:56] Georgete Papadimitrios: Yeah, unfortunately.

[00:03:58] Bob: So Georgete and her kids rely on public assistance to make ends meet, and a really important part of that is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, usually called SNAP benefits. She gets a few hundred dollars a month to buy food.

[00:04:15] Bob: Can you help people understand how important this monthly payment is for you in terms of, you know, being able to feed your kids?

[00:04:22] Georgete Papadimitrios: It's incredibly important. I mean this is a matter of us eating or not. I live on 940-- I think 3 or 42 dollars a month. I have rent. I have bills, I have car insurance, I have my children and their needs for the month, and penny pinching at its finest. So I don’t have extra for food. That is literally my lifeline. That is my ability for my son to have snacks for school, have breakfast, lunch, and dinner for both of them, and dinner and uh I usually fast. I try not to eat a lot. So like mostly, lunch and dinner maybe for me. But it’s more about making sure they have food. I’ll go hungry, but I’m not going to let them.

[00:05:04] Bob: SNAP is the difference between her kids having snacks during the day or going hungry. And that's why what happened last year was so scary.

[00:05:16] Bob: Where were you, where were you shopping, what were you trying to buy?

[00:05:19] Georgete Papadimitrios: Okay, so give me a sec, I get a little emotional because it's, it's a tough... memory.

[00:05:23] Bob: Of course. Yeah...

[00:05:24] Georgete Papadimitrios: And not my favorite.

[00:05:26] Bob: Georgete drives a long way once a month to get most of her groceries to a large market named HEB that has substantially lower prices than her local store. Last November that was especially important because she planned to buy everything she needed for that big Thanksgiving dinner.

[00:05:44] Georgete Papadimitrios: And I went in there and I had my buggy full, I had all of my stuff, my food for the month, and then my Thanksgiving trimmings, you know the things that you get for Thanksgiving; a pie, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuff like that, stuffing, and I got up to the register and I ran my card and they said, "There’s a problem." And I was like, "Well there shouldn’t be. I know I called it and the money was there," and not thinking anything of it, we swiped it again -- nothing. So then I went onto the app, the YourTexasBenefits app and I checked and it showed that it was gone. And then I was like, what? What is happening here? So then I clicked on uh transactions, and it showed transactions that I didn’t make. So I’m like, wait, what is happening? So then I’m upset.

[00:06:34] Bob: What is happening? Her monthly benefit was loaded just two days earlier. She checked, but the purchase just won't go through.

[00:06:42] Georgete Papadimitrios: So I was extremely embarrassed. They pulled my transaction and had me go to the service desk. And I’m standing there with all this food, my baby in the carriage, just freaked out, embarrassed, upset. I don’t understand what’s happening. It was just, it was just not a good time. I ended up actually, you know, apologizing to the manager and saying, you know, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t understand this. I felt like he was looking at me kinda funny. I just felt very uncomfortable. I, I ended up walking out in tears.

[00:07:17] Bob: Walking out in tears, no Thanksgiving food, a ton of embarrassment, and now running late.

[00:07:24] Georgete Papadimitrios: Because I had to get my 5-year-old off of the school bus by a certain time, I wasn’t able to go directly to the food stamp office to try to figure it out. So I went home, I got my son off the bus, and by then it was after 4, they’re not open, so I had to wait till the following morning to even kind of understand what was happening.

[00:07:47] Bob: So she goes to sleep twisting and turning, wakes up the next morning, gets her kids ready for the day, and then...

[00:07:55] Georgete Papadimitrios: I immediately, as soon as they opened, I called trying to get answers and understand and basically I was told, you’re going to have to come to the office in Bryan which is 35 minutes each way away, with the little bit of gas I had where my funds are tight, to go to the office. They're not very pleasant. They're kind of short, and I get they probably deal with people all the time, but I, I'm in there trying to worry about how I'm going to feed me and my children for the month. That's scary.

[00:08:24] Bob: But the office confirms there's a series of purchases on her account that she didn't make. So many that her balance is nearly zero. The transactions all occurred out of state in Massachusetts. It's obvious there's been fraud. Her account has somehow been hacked. But the office can't help her right away.

[00:08:45] Georgete Papadimitrios: And even though they could see on there that it wasn't even used in the state of Texas, which I'm standing in front of you, the day, you know a couple of days before it's used, and it's used in a whole other state across the country. Like obviously it wasn't me. They couldn't issue emergency ones, they just said you just have to wait, it has to be sent to someone, and then they’re going to have to investigate it, and this and that.

[00:09:08] Bob: Eventually, her missing SNAP benefits will be replaced after the investigation, she's told, but not for a while. And that means...

[00:09:18] Georgete Papadimitrios: I basically didn’t have Thanksgiving dinner. I didn’t have groceries. Luckily, my 2-year-old’s father actually helped us get, you know, some Thanksgiving stuff to help us get through, so and a few groceries, so that was a little bit of a relief. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, thank God.

[00:09:38] Bob: So Georgete makes it through a decidedly less than perfect Thanksgiving and follows up with the state benefit office. They confirm, yes, the investigation showed there was fraud, and yes, they will restore her benefit, but she has to make sure she changes her pin code associated with the account and uses the app to freeze the account so no one can spend any of the funds. But then...

[00:10:01] Georgete Papadimitrios: But again, it took I believe almost a month for them to reissue the food stamps that were stolen back, and it was like almost I think five or six hundred dollars’ worth of food stamps stolen from me and my family, and then they didn’t reach out and let me know that they had reissued me them, so I didn’t know. I did everything they asked; I froze the card. They actually issued me a whole brand-new card, so I didn’t even have the same card, not the same numbers, different pin, everything, had it frozen through the app, the YourTexasBenefits app, and before I even knew they were there, they were stolen again.

[00:10:40] Bob: Oh my God!

[00:10:41] Georgete Papadimitrios: So then I went through it all over again. I had to drive back to the food stamp office yet again, wait for them to reissue them, yet again...

[00:10:51] Bob: This time all her benefits had been spent at a bodega in the Bronx. So now, we're talking about two months in a row her food money's been stolen. Again, the state investigates, issues a refund, but this time she watches her account like a hawk and springs into action immediately.

[00:11:09] Georgete Papadimitrios: So the day that I got them, on the 12th, that first thing in the morning I got my son on the bus, I got my other son dressed really quickly, and we flew to HEB because I did not want to risk them stealing them again. I was trying to like basically beat the clock, beat, beat whoever it was to the punch, ‘cause I didn’t know how they were doing it, what they were doing.

[00:11:32] Bob: I can't imagine the stress of waking up one day a month where you get money to buy groceries and having to race to the store and spend it before a criminal spends it from out from under you.

[00:11:45] Georgete Papadimitrios: It's incredibly frustrating and it’s nerve-wracking because I’m so in fear that I’m going to show up at the grocery store and they had beat me to the punch. Not to mention the fact that I’m sitting there with my phone calculating every single thing to make sure I’m spending at least close to what I have and not leaving too much left on it. And then there’s, there’s just so many concerns. So it’s exhausting mentally, emotionally, and physically because I can’t just go and do a couple hundred here and a couple hundred there. I’m literally unloading almost $600 and I’m not complaining because I’m blessed to get that and be able to get through, we need it. But it is a lot of work to do when you can’t just use some and then go back another time or go to a different store that’s closer and get some more stuff. It's a lot to carry.

[00:12:37] Bob: And you can't buy anything that's perishable really.

[00:12:39] Georgete Papadimitrios: No, I, I do and I just try to eat it within the first week like you know, produce and dairy, but once it’s gone, it’s gone, and unfortunately, it’s not like I can keep a whole lot on my card to replenish.

[00:12:54] Bob: Yeah, it's so complicated, my God.

[00:12:56] Georgete Papadimitrios: If we run out of something, we run out of it.

[00:12:59] Bob: So this has now become Georgete's routine. The morning the benefits hit her card she races to the store to spend them before a criminal does. It's been going on for months, basically since last Thanksgiving, and at roughly the same time that Georgete starts playing this crazy game of beat the criminals while we here at The Perfect Scam get an email from a woman named Millie Gonzalez in New York City. She works for a group named Search & Care, which helps people utilize public benefit programs. She's a fan of our show and she wrote in to tell us she'd noticed something really strange happening at work. She wrote to us, "In the last year there has been an uptick in fraud committed against the poorest of the poor, families who rely on SNAP to put food on the table. I'm sure you have many experts that can speak on this topic, and I really think they should." Well Millie is one of those experts, and here she is.

[00:13:54] Millie Gonzalez: So I have a client who, at the time that this happened was 87 years old. She is homebound, right, and very low income, right, so that her SNAP benefits were the only way that she could really afford to buy her, to buy her food. I, I came in and I knew that she'd had a substantial balance, but then when I looked at the receipt, I noticed that the balance had gone down a lot, and I couldn't quite understand why. A couple of weeks later, I noticed that there were purchases that just didn't, now there were purchases that actually didn't seem right, right, because now there were deductions to her account that were happening on the days that nobody was doing any food shopping for her. So now I started to get suspicious, right, it's like the red flags in my head just started going off.

[00:14:48] Bob: So Millie visits her client and they call the state benefit office to see what's going on.

[00:14:53] Millie Gonzalez: We finally got a hold of someone and we spoke to the representative and she was able to run down for me the transactions that I suspected were fraudulent, right? So she told me about a $2100 charge from one store that turned up as a food stamp purchase, and obviously my client was never going to spend $2100 at one store. Sheh gave me the name of the store where it happened, and she told me that this purchase had originated in, I believe it was in Texas, Texas or, yeah, I think it was in Texas that the, that the purchase originated from. So there, you know my client only uses this card at one store in her neighborhood. She's not going anywhere.

[00:15:41] Bob: So Millie applies for a reinstatement from the state office which she gets, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Other workers start reporting the same thing with their clients.

[00:15:51] Millie Gonzalez: I have personally worked with four clients to get, you know to that had benefits stolen, but I know that my colleagues have also dealt with this, because I, you know, because again, I mean we, you know our office, we have a very small office, so there's no way that you don't know what everybody else is, is going through. But now, you know, but now I know what to do. So I knew exactly where, where to go and, and what to do. And I sort of became the uh, the go-to at the office...

[00:16:21] Bob: You're the office expert, sure, yeah.

[00:16:23] Bob: Not only is fraud happening with multiple clients, there's a pattern. Criminals seem to know just when SNAP benefits get applied to their clients' accounts and swoop in and steal them.

[00:16:35] Millie Gonzalez: That's my assumption you know is putting on that detective hat and trying to figure things out so that in my mind, it has to be, you know that there's, that they somehow, they even know when the benefits are arriving, or they just get really lucky, and they hit them on the, on the right day. I mean I had one client that had, you know, numerous transactions occur on one day like on, on her activity report I saw numerous transactions. They're all rather small transactions, right, $25, $23, $18, but the transactions were, according to the activity report, were happening at all types of different locations, and literally within minutes of each other, because on the activity reports you could, you can see what time the purchases happened. And they were within minutes of each other. I'm like, there's no way that you can get from uptown to downtown within minutes and swipe a card. And that was the other thing. None of these clients that, that this happened to, their cards never left their hands, right? They, their cards were not lost, they weren't giving their pin numbers to, to anyone. They weren't, they weren't doing all the things that they, that they tell people to do to protect their, their money.

[00:17:55] Bob: Yeah.

[00:17:57] Bob: And it's still happening.

[00:18:00] Millie Gonzalez: One of my colleagues just had um, one of her clients calls her in the last week and a half to tell that it happened to her. I have another client, a new client that called me about, maybe about three weeks ago to tell me that it happened to her as well, and she told me that she actually, she called the morning of her receiving, when, when she receives her, when she's scheduled to receive her, her benefits, and the full amount was received. And then she called the day after because she was going shopping, and again, she just wanted to make sure. The day after she called, all of her benefits were gone. She, she never got a chance to go, to go shopping.

[00:18:42] Bob: Oh my God, wow.

[00:18:42] Millie Gonzalez: They took the, the, they took the, the full, the full amount. And that's exactly the, the type of scenario that I, that I see happening, that I,, that I see has happened, right? Your benefits arrive let's say on the 1st, and by the 2nd, they're com--, they can be completely wiped out.

[00:19:00] Bob: Completely wiped out, and remember, this is money that people need to eat. Many of these victims like Georgete are extremely careful with their pin codes, and careful to use their apps to freeze the funds.

[00:19:16] Millie Gonzalez: They were all being so careful because of the fact that these benefits are lifesaving for them. You know without these benefits, they don't eat, right? Without these benefits, they have to decide, you know, do I pay my rent or do I go food shopping? I mean I; I can't even begin to explain to you like how heartbreaking it is for a client to call me and tell me that they have absolutely no money on their food stamp card. And that now they have to take from their, from their rent money, or they have to take from the money that they would use to, to pay their Con Edison bill. Or they have to use the money that they would pay, you know that they would need to pay for their, you know for their, for their medications or for, you know it's, I mean it literally can be life and like life-or-death decisions that they have to, to make, right? Do I forego paying my rent this month because I need to be able to buy, to buy food, you know. And they're, I've heard, you know, people say, well you know, they can go to a food pantry and they can get the, you know, they can get food from there, right? And that's all well and good, but there are some clients that are not physically able to get to, to a food pantry. Right?

[00:20:32] Bob: Sure, sure.

[00:20:32] Millie Gonzalez: These are people that are, you know, they can't just go onto Amazon and order their, their groceries, right? They can't go to Instacart and have them deliver their, their groceries for them. They just, they don't have that, that kind of money. If you're receiving food stamps, then for the most part you know you are someone that is low income, and this is a life saving measure for you.

[00:20:56] Bob: The money can be lifesaving, but also trying to buy groceries for your kids only to be told at the checkout line that your card won't go through, well that's a crushing experience of its own kind.

[00:21:09] Georgete Papadimitrios: Well I just, my heart goes out to anybody that this has happened to, because it can be devastating. It's really too, it's too much. I'm getting choked up, sorry.

[00:21:18] Bob: No, don't be sorry. It's, it sounds, I mean you've already got so much else to deal with. This just seems like...

[00:21:22] Georgete Papadimitrios: It's embarrassing.

[00:21:24] Bob: You shouldn't be embarrassed. Those people who administer the program should be embarrassed, and the criminals should be utterly mortified and much worse than that, I think, but...

[00:21:31] Georgete Papadimitrios: Well it's embarrassing because I have to go the grocery store and get a huge amount of food all at once, and I feel like sometimes the cashiers or people look at me sideways, like jeez, you got all this food. And I’m like, yeah, but I don’t have a choice. And I’m like trying to be explanatory, like, well I live kind of far, and they stole my food stamps, and I was on the news, and so I’m afraid to keep it on... and I feel like I have to over explain because I’m embarrassed. I’m pulling up to the register with this huge amount of groceries, because I want to make sure my, me and my children get through the month.

[00:22:02] Bob: You know I hadn't thought about that, I'm really glad you said that. Of course, right, people, there's a stigma attached to you standing there with $500 worth of groceries buying them with a food card, right?

[00:22:11] Georgete Papadimitrios: Judgment, yes.

[00:22:12] Bob: Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:14] Bob: As you might imagine, all this stress isn't good for a young mom with heart disease.

[00:22:20] Georgete Papadimitrios: Well I worry. I know in the last few months I’ve had a serious uptick in dangerous arrhythmia called sustained VTAC. It’s just, I’m already under a tremendous amount of stress being a single mother of two little kids.

[00:22:32] Bob: Yeah, of course.

[00:22:32] Georgete Papadimitrios: So adding insult to injury is not helping my arrhythmias and my health problems, unfortunately.

[00:22:38] Bob: I mean I can't imagine that, I mean first of all, my heart hurts just listening to you. I can't imagine that it's not impacting your heart.

[00:22:45] Georgete Papadimitrios: Yeah, it's not easy uh being under this amount of stress. My heart also breaks for everyone else this is happening to, because it, I know personally how it feels, and it's not fun not knowing how you're going to feed your children.

[00:22:58] Bob: What is happening to Georgete's benefits, to those SNAP cards in New York City? Well whatever it is, it's happening all over the country. Here's Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, which is the state association of food banks.

[00:23:14] Celia Cole: I think it was in, back in 2022, we started hearing about it in Texas and then there was, of course, you know steps taken to set up replacement benefits for people who'd, who'd experienced the loss uh, but yeah, it's a, it's, skimming's been around for a while with credit cards, and it happens a lot at gas stations, but it's really kind of a relatively new phenomenon uh for SNAP, for EBT cards that are used for SNAP. Um, I think the first time it was reported in Texas was in February of 2022.

[00:23:44] Bob: You've probably heard about card skimmers, small devices placed on ATMs or on point-of-sale systems at grocery stores; they can be almost invisible. But they skim the data from credit or debit cards that are inserted. Authorities believe criminals using skimmers are at least part of the problem with SNAP benefits. It seemed to start in 2022, but then in 2023, it became rampant, so rampant that Congress had to set up a special system to refund victims of SNAP benefits theft. And the USDA began tracking those refunds, and...

[00:24:19] Celia Cole: So um, since they started tracking the data, which I guess would have been fiscal '23, and so over like the past two years they've reported that over 190,000 households have been affected, over 500,000 fraudulent transactions, and the benefits replaced over 94 million.

[00:24:41] Bob: And in fact, the latest numbers on that dashboard show about $150 million has been refunded to victims who said their money was stolen. That's $150 million in taxpayer money that was supposed to help moms like Georgete feed their kids or aid workers like Millie make sure their 87-year-old clients could eat. Instead, criminals are spending it all at places like bodegas in New York City.

[00:25:07] Bob: But I imagine those first few cases that came into your call centers, people must have had no idea what was going on, right?

[00:25:13] Celia Cole: Yeah, no, and I think, you know, well we've all probably been the victim of fraud at some point or another, but I think when you are a family living on limited income and, and SNAP can make up sometimes all of the money you have for food, but at least a big portion of it, and to suddenly have that gone and no sort of immediate recourse, it, I, it's just, it can be devastating, you know because it's, it's, you have to, you know, worry immediately about whether you're going to be able to put food on the table. So I think, you know, to go into a grocery store and try to use your card and, and to find out there's, there's nothing on there, I think can just be really scary for families. But this particular kind of fraud, you know, it's just super nefarious, you know, the, the steps that criminals will take to steal people's information. But obviously, just you know, just evil that you would do this to people who are low-income and, and struggling to get by month-to-month.

[00:26:05] Bob: And counting on it to eat.

[00:26:07] Celia Cole: Right, exactly.

[00:26:09] Bob: It turns out there is a serious flaw in the way SNAP benefits are distributed. Many years ago, states switched from handing out paper vouchers, we used to call them food stamps, to using plastic cards that look like credit cards, EBT cards they're called. Loading money onto those cards is easier to manage and also takes away some of the stigma associated with spending SNAP money. Now you might recall over a decade ago, credit card companies switched from using those old-fashioned magnetic stripe cards to using cards with computer chips on them. The chip cards are pretty secure, the mag stripe only cards, not so much. Once criminals obtain card data, perhaps through a skimming device, or perhaps another way, the mag stripe EBT cards are easy to clone. Well SNAP cards still use just those old magnetic stripes. So criminals can feast on them. The problem is well known, but getting states to update their systems to chip cards is well, not in the cards right at this moment.

[00:27:13] Celia Cole: So there are, there is a long-term technology fix that's in the works, but it, it's going to take time. Yeah, so I think you know that basically we, we want people who participate in the SNAP program to have the same protections that anyone who uses a credit card has. So the, I think, uh USDA's been working with the industry that produces these cards; there's not that many EBT makers um, com--, companies in the country. So they've been working with them to, to basically come up with the technology fix, which is to move away from the magnetic stripe to the, the chip card. And so the, the question now is how quickly can states basically adopt that new technology. It's not like you can't flip a switch, right? And there's a lot of different moving parts, and at, at this point right now, it's really up to states to decide whether to make the move. It's not a mandatory thing. So, you know, even for those states that are eager to move quickly, it's going to take time. But the technology, the technological fix is, is there, it's available. In the meantime, we just need to make sure that there's legislation passed um, to make sure that until we have those, we put those protections in place and make that shift over to the, to the chip card that people aren't losing SNAP benefits.

[00:28:35] Bob: So it will take a huge ordeal to secure Georgete's SNAP benefits and currently, no state uses chip cards on their SNAP cards, although some are discussing it.

[00:28:40] Bob: It's hard when you hear that story to not think, oh, somebody's neglecting the neediest here, because maybe they, they don't, they don't deserve the investment in better technology in their food stamp cards. Is that sentiment, is there any truth to that sentiment?

[00:28:54] Celia Cole: I think just generally speaking, we don't always prioritize the needs of, of low-income people. You know there's definitely a, a lot of inequity in our food system overall and inequity in, in public policies. And I think in a capitalist economy, businesses are looking to do things that make money, give, give them profits. And so if doing something for a low-income person isn't profitable, I think that they're slower to, to move. And you know, if you go back a couple of decades, people were still using actual food stamps, you know, actual paper coupons. And you know that was, it, you know in the early 2000s people, it took a while to get all states to even move away from that. So and that was obviously happened way after everyone else was already using you know, plastic. So I think yeah, we are slow to move when it comes to doing things that, you know, aren't moneymakers.

[00:29:49] Bob: And that issue aside, if taxpayers knew $100 million is, is being stolen systematically because we haven't bothered to upgrade this technology, I think they'd be pretty angry about that.

[00:29:59] Celia Cole: Yeah, I, I mean I would be. And I think, you know, I mean obviously SNAP serves a, a really diverse population. And it's a, it's a fairly broad based program, so but, but there, everyone who I think participates is, is vulnerable to a certain extent, but then when you think about particularly vulnerable populations, for example, seniors I think who are more vulnerable to this kind of fraud generally, I mean I think we all have stories of our mothers and grandmothers, um, being uh taken advantage of. Um, I have my own story with my own mother and the, the, so I think I'm, I, I would think we'd be, we should be particularly worried about the impact this is having on, on seniors who I think are just generally speaking more vulnerable to this kind of fraud.

[00:30:43] Bob: The scale of the problem is so large that federal authorities have taken notice, and in February, they arrested two people in Brooklyn who they allege trafficked in stolen SNAP benefits. The problem has wider impact beyond the SNAP recipients too, plenty of recipients rush to stores when their SNAP benefits hit and at least some of them, like Georgete, are trying to beat the criminals.

[00:31:05] Celia Cole: You know and, you know I, I think, and it's also really stressful on the retailers. I mean they, they staff up at the beginning of the month to, because they do see a surge in people generally coming in. Because, you know, SNAP benefits typically run out by the second or third week sometimes of the month. They're definitely not adequate. And so, you know people will often, you know, be waiting a week or two once their benefits run out just to be able to go grocery shopping. And so there's usually a surge of people using their SNAP benefits at the beginning of the month. So you know it's definitely, it impacts the industry as well. And then, you know, I mean some people don't have the type of sort of refrigeration space to store a whole month's of food.

[00:31:45] Bob: Of course, a whole month's worth of food, yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:46] Celia Cole: Yeah, and you just don't want people to have to you know be, be taking those steps simply because they're afraid of, of their, their card being defrauded.

[00:31:54] Bob: Before SNAP cards can be upgraded, there might be more that can be done, Celia thinks.

[00:32:00] Celia Cole: So anyway, I, I just, I think that we, credit card companies, banks, et cetera, are taking steps to help to make sure that, that when your debit card is defrauded, I mean I get an alert any time there's something suspicious on my debit card, and if I, you know, if it's not, if it is fraud, I'm typically issued a credit, you know while they research it, and so there's just all these protections I think for people who are a part of like the mainstream banking system in this country. And so I just think we need to have, we obviously need to have the same protections in place for anyone who's using this kind of a card, a debit card.

[00:32:35] Bob: For the foreseeable future Georgete will continue to race to the store every time her benefits appear.

[00:32:42] Georgete Papadimitrios: We need the food stamps to feed our families, our children, ourselves, so kicking someone when they’re already down and they’re already vulnerable, it's just heartbreaking to say the least, especially when you’re on the other end of it and it’s happening to you.

[00:32:57] Bob: I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. This is, again, I, I just can't, I don't know how you're staying sane in the middle of it. Yeah.

[00:33:03] Georgete Papadimitrios: I hope it doesn't happen to others, that it's not fun and you wait. And if, if you don’t have people or support, I was lucky the first time it happened to have some help. But if I hadn’t, I would have had gone hungry, me and my children, for a month. The only thing they could suggest was go to a food pantry. There’s only, I believe, one in my county, and it’s once a month. And when I did, a long time ago tried to go to food pantries, they’re all in the city which is where the food stamp office is. And they’ll tell you, well you’re out of, you’re in a different county.

[00:33:36] Bob: Oh boy.

[00:33:36] Georgete Papadimitrios: So their only suggestion was go to a food pantry. And a food pantry, yes, it is, though it’s helpful, it’s not going to feed you and sustain you for a month. They give you bare min--, bare essentials, you know like a few things of meat, maybe a thing of rice, maybe a box of pasta. Maybe this or that, it’s, it’s sparse, and I mean it’s enough if you really had to put a meal together and you were starving, but it’s, it’s mostly odds and ends.

[00:33:59] Bob: Yeah, and boxes and cans, right?

[00:34:01] Georgete Papadimitrios: Yes.

[00:34:03] Bob: But she wishes there were a better, quicker way to get stolen funds restored.

[00:34:08] Georgete Papadimitrios: Anything would be better than making a family of three wait almost a month, you know, even issuing 100 or two in emergency food stamps just to, to get, you know, people through, would be better than making them wait. I mean you can, you can easily penalize someone if it’s discovered that they had played a part in it, by you know taking them, permanently taking them off of the SNAP program, but to make those who had nothing to do with it suffer for almost a month before they were reimbursed with what was stolen, it’s just making me and my children suffer. There has got to be a better way.

[00:34:44] Bob: I just saw a survey also that said about a third of people who are victims of this don't even know that they're entitled to reimbursement, so they don't file a claim. So then that money is just lost to them forever. So it's, it's great to call attention to this so at least people know to, to complain and, and get a reimbursement.

[00:34:59] Georgete Papadimitrios: You, yeah, you, you get the money back if it’s proven that obviously it wasn’t you or you didn’t give your card info or anything to someone else.

[00:35:08] Bob: And as Thanksgiving approaches this year, well she really hopes she gets to the store before criminals can get to her money.

[00:35:16] Georgete Papadimitrios: I hope we beat whoever it is to the punch; we get all of our turkey, all of our trimmings, our ham, and all of our favorites, and our pie.

[00:35:25] Bob: So if you or someone you know gets SNAP benefits, how can you protect yourselves right now?

[00:35:31] Celia Cole: Well, I think just generally speaking, you know, that people should protect their card in a safe place. Don't like write down their pin or anywhere else, and never share the card. That's just an immediate step, setting aside the issue of skimming, and I think then reviewing purchases and checking your balance frequently. So like if there's something sticking off of it or there's, the keys are sticky, it's like they, it's hard I think to tell because the skimmers really look like part of the card reader, but our Office of Inspector General says to look out for evidence of loose pieces that look glued or taped and tapped in place, and then look where a video camera might face the card reader. Number keys that feel soft or spongy or covered in plastic, those are all kind of can be signs that there's a skimming device on it. Um, and then obviously, if they see something strange, they, they obviously want them to report it immediately. And then of course, if they have experienced a loss or fraud, there, there are steps they need to take pretty quickly to get those benefits replaced. Essentially what you need to do is go into a office, and it has to be within 30 days of the date you discovered the fraud. So it's important that people act quickly. There is a form that they will need to fill out in the office.

[00:36:50] Bob: Can I interrupt you for a second?

[00:36:50] Celia Cole: Sure.

[00:36:51] Bob: Because I think within 30 days is a really important piece of information.

[00:36:53] Celia Cole: Yes.

[00:36:54] Bob: Because that's stricter than most people are familiar with with their credit or debit card.

[00:36:59] Celia Cole: Yes. So I think that's why checking your balance frequently is important because it, you do have to, and then of course keeping track of, and keeping a record of anything, any fraudulent transactions that you see, all of that's important.

[00:37:13] Bob: I mean I know there have been a couple of uh, prosecutions of criminals in this, uh and I, I just wonder, not, not that those criminals are listening to this podcast, but wow, what kind of person do you have to be to be stealing money out of folks who, who just need a few dollars to get food every month, right?

[00:37:27] Celia Cole: Yeah, it's, it's despicable, it really, really is. And you know again, we have like a two-tier system, so we've got families, the most vulnerable Americans stuck you know with this sort of outdated, easy to hack system, and then people with more income have credit cards and ATM cards are better protected and so I think that that is an inequity that’s very obvious, and you know I think this should be, this should be a no-brainer.

[00:37:53] Bob: You know there's just one other thing I want to make sure I get to, which um, I'm sitting here feeling nervous about. There has to be a universe of people who either don't notice that their money is stolen or, or when it's stolen, just sort of shrug and say, well I guess that it just didn't work out for me this month or, or don't know enough to, to file to get a, a rebate, right?

[00:38:13] Celia Cole: Yeah, I think you know when I was sharing the data from, from USDA's dashboard earlier, I was thinking that this probably isn't everyone that's been affected. And I'm glad they're keeping, obviously, the dashboard is there and they're keeping track of it, but yeah, I mean again, when you think about the population of the universe of people who participate in SNAP, it's, the majority is families with kids or seniors or people with disabilities. But you have people with language barriers, who I think already sort of struggled to understand, you know if you have people with limited literacy, you know you have people with disabilities, It's not just seniors. So you have people that I think probably um, don't, aren't aware that there's something you can even do about it, or they're not able to understand um, the information that's going out about what you can do about it. So I think you know when you asked earlier like what can be done in the meantime, I think just recognizing that there are people who are probably harder to reach with the information that they need if their benefits are stolen. It's just something to keep in mind.

[00:39:17] Bob: I asked Millie Gonzalez what she would say to criminals who are stealing money off SNAP benefit cards if she had the chance.

[00:39:24] Millie Gonzalez: Oh my gosh, I mean I, I mean I, I probably can't say on this, on this broadcast what I would want to say to them, right? But you know I mean I just don't understand how you can do this knowing that you are stealing pretty much, you know from the, the poorest of the poor, you know and, and people that are elderly, and people that have young children. I mean how do you do that? You know, how do you sleep at night? How do you, how do you live with yourself? I just don't understand that. I can't imagine what goes through the minds of someone that is doing this, because you obviously know the kind of person that you're, that you're stealing from, right? Because you're, you're not getting food stamps if you, you know, if you have, if you're a millionaire, right? Or even if you're, you know if you're, if you have a, a regular good income. You're not getting food stamps. So why are you stealing from the people that can afford it the least? I mean it's horrible, it's just horrible. And I just don't und--, I just don't understand the mind and the heart of that person.

[00:40:31] Bob: Millie says victims don't have to take care of this problem alone.

[00:40:35] Millie Gonzalez: If you see anything that looks the leastest bit suspicious, you know, call us and let us know, talk to your social worker, talk to your case manager, talk to someone and you know either get in contact with us or get in contact with someone that's going to be able to, to help you get, get through this.

[00:40:53] Bob: All of us at every age could always use someone else to help us look through our account statements.

[00:40:59] Millie Gonzalez: Yeah, it's one of, you know it's, it's again, you know it's because so many people, they don't understand the statement. They can't read the statements because they print them out so tiny, right? A lot of people don't even get statements anymore because the banks are charging them a monthly fee to get a paper statement, right? So they need to save that money so they don't even get a statement anymore. You know so we become that set of eyes. And Bob, I think that that's something that I think I may have heard you say that at some point on, on one of the podcasts, right, that people need, that you need a second set of eyes, you know family members need a second set of eyes when they're not there.

[00:41:38] Bob: I mean look, I miss things on my credit card statements, we all do.

[00:41:41] Millie Gonzalez: Right. Exactly and, and if it happens to us, you know, then the likelihood is that it's going to happen to someone else.

[00:41:51] Bob: For more on SNAP benefits or on what to do about SNAP benefit fraud, visit FeedingAmerica.org. And happy Thanksgiving. For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:41:13] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you are not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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