Families in Arkansas and Kansas rely on SNAP benefits to put food on the table. These aren't extras — for a lot of households, that EBT card is the grocery budget, full stop. So when scammers figured out how to drain those accounts, they didn't just steal money. They left parents trying to figure out how to feed their kids until the next deposit, with no guarantee they'd ever see those stolen dollars replaced.
This past summer, Arkansas saw such a serious wave of EBT theft that the Department of Human Services had to force a PIN reset on every affected card statewide. That's how bad it got. And the people hurt most are the ones who can least afford to wait — elderly residents, working families, people with disabilities. Meanwhile, the state is on the hook for the administrative scramble that comes after every breach. This isn't a small problem. Card-skimming fraud against SNAP accounts has been hitting states across the country, and Arkansas and Kansas families shouldn't keep absorbing those losses while we wait for someone else to act.
The fix exists: EBT cards with chip technology and transaction alerts are harder to skim and easier to monitor. Several states have already moved in this direction. I'm asking you to push our state agencies — in Arkansas, the Department of Human Services, and in Kansas, the Department for Children and Families — to accelerate the transition to more secure EBT card technology and restore stolen benefits to affected families without red tape.
Please take action now to protect our neighbors' food assistance from fraud and make sure stolen benefits get replaced quickly.
