Saturday, August 23, 2014

Food Stamp Fraud Rampant

That's what a GAO (Government Accounting Office) report says.  My first response was a hearty "No Shit!" because food stamp fraud has been rampant for as long as I've been a police officer.

Back in the day when food stamps were actually pieces of paper, given out in little books, they were traded like cash on the underground market.

Nowadays, the paper food stamp is long gone, dead as Het, and benefits are transferred on an EBT card, but it's still easy to defraud the system.  Either through unscrupulous merchants, or through simple consumer fraud.

Several months ago, Milady was shopping at the grocers when she was approached by a woman with an EBT card.  The lady had benefits, but wanted cash, so she offered to pay for MIlady's groceries on the card, then settle-up for cash outside the store.  Milady, of course, declined, and told store managers that the woman was running a scam.

But, the point of the post is when the government publishes a report that says benefit fraud is rampant, any thinking taxpayer will conclude that the report itself is a waste of time and money.  Of course food stamp fraud is rampant.  It always has been.

2 comments:

Ryan said...

Generally speaking I do not have an issue with helping folks who are down on their luck eat. Our government certainly spends money on worse things than that.

However the stuff people can buy with EBT cards really bothers me. When the people in line at the store near me using EBT are getting more expensive food than we are something is wrong.

I think the EBT system should work more like WIC where per person they get so certain amounts of different items: a gallon of milk, two boxes of cereal, a dozen eggs, etc.

Melissa said...

I don't think you should be able to buy junk food with an EBT card. If the First Lady has an agenda to end childhood obesity (most prevalent in poor populations) then why can you buy a 2L of soda and chips at a convenience store with government dollars? I agree with the previous poster regarding specified quantities of necessary foods.