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Monday, September 15, 2014

Feds have no idea the extent of SNAP fraud, says Iowa official

DES MOINES, Iowa — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is sure the U.S. Department of Agriculture is doing a great job fighting fraud committed by people receiving benefits in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Wendy Dishman disagrees.

Dishman is the administrator of the Investigative Division of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, which has been in investigating fraud committed by SNAP recipients in the state ever since the days when the program was known as the Food Stamp Program.

Dishman says the Food and Nutrition Service, the division of USDA that runs SNAP, doesn’t even have reliable data on the extent of fraud committed by recipients.

“There’s a lot of inconsistencies in the data they collect,” Dishman told Iowa Watchdog.

FNS investigates cases of SNAP fraud committed by vendors, but leaves it to the states to investigate fraud by benefit recipients.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Then it needs to discontinue until the Feds get a grasp on it.

Anonymous said...

Top 10 sells cigars, beer, and single cigarettes with SNAP. You can also get change back ($20 for $1 charge).

I hear several other stores do it too. Mainly done by the foreign owned stores.