Lynchburg is one of the first Virginia localities to receive more secure payment cards for federal food aid, as benefit theft remains a threat statewide and in the city, where theft numbers jumped from $3,000 in July to nearly $63,000 in August.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits are loaded onto electronic benefit transfer cards for residents to spend at qualified grocery stores and markets. SNAP fraud occurs when thieves steal EBT card information and spend the money loaded onto it.
What SNAP recipients should know
There will be no interruption to SNAP benefits as chip-enabled EBT cards are distributed, according to the state Department of Social Services’ guide to the new card rollout. Cards will be mailed to SNAP recipients starting with those in the pilot group. A full list of localities in the pilot group is available in the rollout guide.
When the new card arrives, families should activate it and set up a PIN, and they can start using the card as soon as it’s activated. The old magnetic stripe cards will automatically deactivate 60 days after new cards are mailed.
Residents are encouraged to protect their EBT accounts by:
- Regularly checking account balances and transaction histories and immediately reporting unrecognized transactions.
- Using strong passwords and changing EBT PINs frequently.
- Never sharing EBT credentials with others, especially in response to suspicious texts.
- Locking the card when it is not in use through the ConnectEBT app.
Across Virginia, there was about $2.4 million in SNAP theft reported from January to July this year, according to data released by Michael Pulley, spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Social Services. In 2025, about $5.9 million in SNAP theft was recorded.
Those sums account for a fraction of a percent of the $1.8 billion that Virginia distributes in SNAP benefits annually. But they represent families who couldn’t pay for the food in their cart after their account was drained without their knowledge, said Preston Sellers, the director of human services in Lynchburg, in a phone interview.
“They go to the grocery store, the farmers market, wherever they go to use their EBT card — and then they find out there’s nothing on the card, there at the point of sale,” Sellers said.
Virginia is one of eight states that have issued chip-enabled EBT cards for safer transactions, according to a Sept. 10 news release about the rollout of the new technology. Embedded microchips, which are standard in the debit and credit card industry, help prevent card fraud by being more resistant to skimming, which is when card information is captured by illegal electronic devices installed inside card readers.
“SNAP benefits are often what stands between the families we serve and an empty table, and no one should have to worry about going hungry because a criminal targeted the help they depend on,” said Duke Storen, commissioner of the state Social Services Department, in the news release. “The threat of benefit theft is real, and this modernization strengthens the security of the benefits Virginians count on.”
A closer look at the trends
About two dozen localities have been selected to participate in a pilot program of the new card technology, including Lynchburg and some regional neighbors such as Radford, Roanoke and the counties of Giles, Washington and Wythe.
New cards were mailed to SNAP recipients in the pilot group on Sept. 11. For localities not in the pilot group, new cards will be mailed starting at the end of October, and all new cards should be in hand by the end of December, according to the news release.
Sellers said he’s hopeful that the new EBT cards will curb a recent trend in Lynchburg: City residents reported more than $60,000 in SNAP theft in August, he said, which was a spike from the city’s average of about $2,000 in theft per month for the other months of 2026. By the second week of September, monthly theft numbers were already up to about $20,000 in Lynchburg, he added.
The pilot program for the more secure cards “is just a great opportunity for Lynchburg to be at the forefront of doing this to take care of our citizens,” Sellers said.
The federal government ended a program to reimburse recipients for stolen SNAP benefits in December 2024, and tracking of unreimbursed stolen benefits began in Virginia in April 2025, Pulley said.
Benefit theft numbers are voluntarily reported by residents to local departments of social services, Pulley said, so data may not reflect the full scope of benefit theft across Virginia. July is the most recent month with data available for all Virginia localities, so Lynchburg’s August spike cannot yet be compared with other city and county numbers.
The amounts of stolen benefits ebb and flow by month and locality, the data since April 2025 shows. So far this year, January had the most stolen benefits, with local spikes in places like Roanoke, where $103,000 was reported as stolen. Like Lynchburg, Roanoke’s spike was far above its recent totals: reported theft in Roanoke was about $1,900 in May, $5,000 in June and $210 in July.
The localities with the most stolen benefits in July were Newport News, with $65,000 reported stolen, and Danville, with $54,000 reported stolen. Meanwhile, in July, 45 localities reported no fraud at all.
From 2026 theft totals calculated through July, Fairfax has the most reported theft, at about $328,000, and Prince William County has the second most, at about $276,000. The Fairfax number includes the city and the county, plus Falls Church, based on the social services department that includes all three.
Sellers said he’s not aware of what created Lynchburg’s spike in theft in August, but his office works with the Lynchburg Police Department to ensure investigations are conducted.
“The Lynchburg Police Department takes reports of fraud and financial theft seriously and remains committed to supporting victims in our community,” said Kathleen Jennings, spokesperson for the department, in an emailed statement. “We work alongside partner agencies to investigate compromised accounts and also educate residents on how to recognize and prevent scams through free fraud presentations and social media.”
Jennings said that Lynchburg residents who believe they are victims of fraud should file a report by calling the department’s nonemergency number at 434-847-1602. Sellers added that a call to the local human services office is needed, too, to stop further fraudulent activity on the stolen card and start the process of getting a new card.
Because there is no way to reimburse stolen benefits, Sellers said, he works with nearby food pantries to make sure that residents have the food they need if their account is drained — for days or weeks until a new month’s worth of SNAP benefits are issued.
California, the first state to implement chip EBT cards, reported in January that benefit theft had dropped 83% since new cards were issued in January 2024. The more secure tech is needed in Virginia in the midst of ongoing changes to SNAP, Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in the news release. The state is navigating the effects of a budget reconciliation bill passed by Congress that is expected to reduce federal spending for SNAP by $187 billion over the next decade.
“At a time when many families are struggling to keep up with the rising price of groceries and Republicans in Washington are making the deepest cuts to SNAP in the program’s history, we are taking this step to make sure families have secure, accessible support — and are protected from bad actors,” said Spanberger, a Democrat.
