As scammers get more savvy, Ohio is tightening security measures for food and cash assistance benefits recipients.
Fraudsters are becoming more brazen in their efforts to steal people’s identities or obtain benefits they aren’t entitled to—a crime that’s leaving families hungry and costing taxpayers millions of dollars. In Ohio, criminals have stolen more than $17.1 million from food stamp, or SNAP, recipients since 2023, NEWS 5 Cleveland reports.
At the beginning of this week, recipients must now have an Ohio State Digital ID, OHID, to access the online portal. According to ohid.ohio.gov, OHID is “the State of Ohio’s digital identity solution for both citizens and State agency employees.”
According to the official Ohio Benefits webpage, the Ohio Benefits Self-Service Portal now requires recipients to use an OHID Single Sign-On and Multi-Factor Authentication to log in and access benefits.
An optional OHID Identity Proofing feature is also available to provide an additional layer of security. According to a news release, this process reaffirms that the right person is logging in and keeps sensitive information safe and secure.
However, tightening access to online accounts isn’t the only way state officials are cracking down on SNAP fraud. The Ohio Investigative Unit has found 145 skimming devices at 131 retail locations so far, according to the NEWS 5 report.
According to a news release, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services issued an alert in December about an uptick in suspicious activity, particularly in Cuyahoga County.
From Oct. 1, 2022, through Dec. 1, 2024, ODJFS issued $12.6 million in reimbursements to 25,400 Ohioans. A federal program authorized by Congress allowed SNAP recipients who had their benefits stolen to apply for replacement benefits.
The program ended on Dec. 20, 2024, and NEWS 5 spoke to one Cleveland resident with stolen food stamp benefits.
“They don’t know who took it,” theft victim Robert Cassel III told NEWS 5. “All they can tell you is where it was spent. … You can find bin Laden, but you can’t find who’s taking my SNAPs every month.”
Skimming cases involve putting replica covers on store payment machines to steal EBT card numbers and PINs. Criminals then use that information to drain cardholders’ accounts.
“As technology changes, crime evolves,” Bob Boldin, the assistant agent in charge at the Ohio Investigative Unit’s office in Cleveland, told NEWS 5. “It’s really only been within the last year or two that we’ve focused directly on skimming and other attacks on EBT cards. … When we started looking at the numbers, the staggering losses occurring through skimming and other fraud schemes were just overwhelming.”
This is complex fraud involving multiple bad actors, and all of the skimming devices come from China, Boldin said. The devices can capture card numbers and PINs and steal information via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi at the retailers. Once cards are skimmed, the data is being run in batches in other states, in New York, Chicago, and California.
“Typically, though, that card data moves from the person who captured it or stole it to a bad actor on the retail side,” Boldin said. “How it gets there is a large part of the mystery. We know there's a lot of dark web activity.”
Besides skimming scams, there are also phishing scams in which fraudsters call or text recipients, trying to get access to their 16-digit card number and four-digit PIN code.
Boldin advises all EBT cardholders to change their PIN monthly before it reloads and lock it down, especially for out-of-state transactions. The ConnectEBT app allows the recipient to go in to lock and unlock their card before they go to the store.
“The numbers that we've looked at over the last roughly two years show somewhere between $15 million and $20 million in suspected fraudulent transactions of Ohio recipients at out-of-state retailers,” Boldin told NEWS 5.
