The Patrick County Sheriff’s Office and Department of Social Services (DSS) are currently investigating approximately 50 cases of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) fraud.
According to a media release from the sheriff’s office, investigators with both departments became aware that benefits were not available to some recipients, and are working to determine a timeline and how users’ information was compromised.
“It appears that a bulk of the EBT cards had been skimmed, starting in June 2025 and continuing through August 2025. Skimming is the practice of stealing the information from the magnetic strip on a debit, credit, or EBT card, and then capturing the PIN for the card,” the release stated.
Investigator Jason Kruse said in his opinion, those who didn’t get hit by the skimmers had already used most of their benefits.
“Because nobody really saves them, because you can’t. It’s just enough to get your groceries. But I think whoever got hit got hit early on and reports were made to DSS,” he said.
DSS then issued those people new cards with different ID and PIN numbers.
Kruse doesn’t believe residents will have to worry about the skimmers in October, “because it seems they just roll through an area. Once they get that information and get that money, they know that DSS is going to change card numbers and change PINs, so it’s not advantageous for them to try and use the same numbers when they’re going to be changed,” he said.
Kruse said the department believes the incident occurred over a period of time from June to August.
“We don’t think it all happened on one day in one particular month. We think they moved the skimmers around for a day or two. The skimmers are sitting on one terminal, then they’re sitting on another terminal, then they’re at another store, sitting on another terminal at another store, and they just get the information that they can, and then they move on,” he said.
Kruse said the skimmers typically wait until the first day or week of the month to pull the benefits off the cards because that’s when the cards start to get loaded with that month’s money.
Kruse said the recommendation is for people to download and use the ConnectEBT app, which will allow them to lock and unlock their cards.
The app can be found by going to www.dss.virginia.gov and typing ConnectEBT Lock/Unlock into the search bar and following the directions. The app’s also available on the Apple store and Google Play Store.
Kruse said those who believe they’ve been affected by the skimmers should first contact Fraud Investigator Butch Coleman at the local social services office.
“Then, make contact with us. That’s been pretty much what everybody’s been doing. The bulk of the calls have been to DSS, and we get a couple of follow-ups from people to help us, and we appreciate that greatly,” he said.
For more information, visit Facebook.com/PatrickCountySheriff’sOffice.
