SALT LAKE CITY — At the beginning of this year, FOX 13 started hearing from viewers that their EBT card funds had been used before they got the chance to spend their benefits.
The Utah Department of Workforce Services worked with federal partners and card vendors to announce their new lock feature that customers can access online.
“Some very smart people hacked into their system,” said Lee St. Onge, an EBT card customer.
Scams seemed to get more sophisticated by the day.
“We are seeing or seeing more and more theft, online, where thieves are guessing card numbers, and making purchases and wiping out balances,” said Becky Wickstrom, Public Information Officer for Utah Workforce Services.
Earlier this year, FOX 13 met with St. Onge after she learned her funds were used as she went to buy her groceries.
"Went to go use my food stamp trad the grocery store and there was nothing on it and I was like wait maybe that should be like $200 on here. I barely used a little bit of it. And it was all gone and I was just in shock and embarrassed and in tears because that’s just me you know all these groceries there and I didn’t know what was going on,” said St. Onge.
At the time she contacted workforce services, they told her she was not the only one.
“Saw this was a big problem, we’re working on the back end with these other solutions but they take a lot of time,” said Wickstrom.
St. Onge worried for the others who'd gone through what she had.
“Families with children that had their money taken, I mean and you know they made $400 a month and it was just gone when they went to use their card and they were not reimbursing anybody and they had no solution,” said St. Onge.
Department of Workforce Services is working toward a solution, but in the meantime, they’ve added a lock feature.
“A card user can go on jobs.utah/gov, login, they can view their EBT information and easily click a button to lock or unlock their card,” said Wickstrom.
It’s their new feature that they encourage customers to use.
“When their card is locked, it means you can’t spend. They can’t spend, no one can make a purchase with their card until it is unlocked,” said Wickstrom.
Customer instructions for how to use and protect their EBT card are available here.
