ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – Some of you have been telling us of a scary scenario that goes like this:
You go to the store for groceries, try to run your EBT card and the cashier tells you there are insufficient funds; not because you miscalculated, but because you were stolen from.
Recently, Jacquelene LaChance made a quick trip to the grocery store for a gallon of milk. That’s when she learned, her EBT card had been wiped clean.
“I’m like, ‘What?’ There must be some mistake here,” she said.
She called her local Department of Social Services and contacted law enforcement- learning the transaction traced back to a deli in New York City. All $281 of it. She was told there was no way for the money to be restored to her card.
“And that really made me feel like cheap and nobody cares,” she said, “the system has failed.”
She joins a growing number of people across the country who’ve fallen victim to this type of scam.
“This is an orchestrated scam where they’re targeting people all over the country,” said Julie Wheeler, CEO of the Better Business Bureau Serving Western Virginia. “So they just want the money, they don’t want to use it for food.”
Wheeler said it’s possible this is a scam with roots overseas.
“Well, the problem is when you cross states, it’s very hard of who has jurisdiction, you know, how do you track it down,” she explained. “If it’s out of the country, it’s almost impossible.”
“They’re much broader than counties or cities…
