Today's editorial from our opinion team: Not securing EBT cards is 'unconscionable malfeasance on the part of government bureaucrats in our high-tech state in which so much expertise on financial security against such theft is available.'
It’s bad enough to be struggling financially as a young single mom trying to put yourself through college.thieves keep stealing the small but extremely helpful financial benefits the state of California provides monthlyAnd then the real kick in the head: the thefts are essentially caused by the state’s inability to provide you with the same electronic security measures more affluent credit card and ATM card users have been protected by for over seven years.
Once again, in the state whose private sector essentially invented the technology that allows contemporary banking to work and be highly secure, the state government itself is woefully behind in adapting that technology. Such a scenario would be ripe for a comical satire if it weren’t so simply cruel.this month in these pages, the first time such an electronic theft happened to West Los Angeles College student Courtney Abrams, hardly anyone believed her: “Someone had drained the more than $700 in cash aid and nearly $200 in food stamps from the electronic benefits transfer card the 33-year-old single mother received from the state, just minutes after those monthly payments appeared in her account.” She hadn’t lost her card or made any other mistakes. Yet when she reported the theft, which she did immediately, it took weeks for the state to replace the money stolen from her. Weeks someone in her financial position doesn’t really have to stay solvent, pay the bills, feed her kid. The money that was rightfully hers had been stolen. And — say what you will about private banks not always being an example of human kindness, overflowing — these days, when you report a fraudulent transaction on your credit card, in most cases banks will immediately make you whole. The thievery methods against welfare recipients are criminally ingenious and complex, and the larceny is not exactly being perpetrated by the state of California, as such. But the fact of the matter is that the rip-offs from EBT cards issued by the state would not be happening if the cards were provided with the security features that private banks started putting on their credit and debit cards in 2015: security chips. The cards used by Abrams and other recipients are therefore vulnerable to the by-now old-fashioned illegal “skimming” scams that use hidden devices to copy information from the card’s electronic strip. To make purchases or withdraw money, EBT card users must swipe those strips. And until just eight months ago, the cards did not make use of the three-digit security codes that are on the back of our credit and ATM cards as an additional layer of protection against fraud. This is unconscionable malfeasance on the part of government bureaucrats in our high-tech state in which so much expertise on financial security against such theft is available. The mean, preventable financial pain of the past can’t be undone. The good news, CalMatters reports: “The state social services department is proposing to spend $76.5 million over the next three years to upgrade EBT cards with ‘enhanced security features,’ according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal.”
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