The Legal Aid Society and Empire Justice Center sent a letter urging the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) to compensate victims of skimming, a form of electronic theft used to steal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), federal benefits used for the purchase of food, and cash benefits, both essential forms of assistance for low-income people.

The State’s current policy denies skimming victims compensation for the value of benefits stolen through this illegal practice, as reported by THE CITY.

Skimming involves the use of a device that is secretly installed at a retail point-of-sale machine that captures the data on a card and remotely transmits it to a thief offsite. According to ODTA, as of August 2022 at least 2,208 low-income New Yorkers have been the victims of benefit theft by perpetrators of EBT card skimming schemes, and that number is likely significantly higher now as skimming continues to spread around the State. The total value of benefits known to be stolen as of August 2022 was $737,522.

Advocates called on OTDA to fulfill its duty to take immediate prevention actions to protect New Yorkers from further victimization, including converting all magnetic stripe EBT cards to chip cards.

“We expect the State to do right by the families affected by skimming, who have been the victims of this sophisticated form of theft through no fault of their own,” said Susan Welber, an attorney in the Civil Law Reform Unit at The Legal Aid Society. “Given that the benefits stolen spell the difference between families being able to feed their children and going hungry, quick action must be taken to rectify this problem.”