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Food stamp over payment - I never received food stamps!

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cyanne

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania

I lived with my ex boyfriend from 02/2010-07/2011. I was receiving medicaid benefits when he applied for and received medicaid and food stamps around 09/2010.

I worked from 02/2011-04/2011 (I stopped receiving medicaid at that time due to my employment), and from 06/2011-present. We split up and moved apart 07/2011.

In the past month, I have received two different treasury offset notices, one for my two month employment as well as one for 07/2011-10/2011. That's about $1600 total.

I've made several calls to the PA Office of Inspector General, as well as my county assistance office (Lehigh). I've sent address change information to them to prove that I did not live with my ex starting 07/2011.

Neither office seems to care that I did not apply for those food stamps, that I did not get a food stamp card in my name, or that I was never notified that I was in any way attached to my ex's benefits.

The only information that I could get from them is that their records show that the benefits were in my name, on my SSN, and that if I lived with him then I am responsible.

Had I known about this then, I would have told them that I was working and there would have been no over payment. Yet neither office will even try to find the application or look into how they only sent my ex a food stamp card yet have the benefits under my name.

Since speaking with the OIG over the phone, and the county assistance office in person as well as over the phone is not accomplishing anything, what else can I do?
 


Ohiogal

Queen Bee
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania

I lived with my ex boyfriend from 02/2010-07/2011. I was receiving medicaid benefits when he applied for and received medicaid and food stamps around 09/2010.

I worked from 02/2011-04/2011 (I stopped receiving medicaid at that time due to my employment), and from 06/2011-present. We split up and moved apart 07/2011.

In the past month, I have received two different treasury offset notices, one for my two month employment as well as one for 07/2011-10/2011. That's about $1600 total.

I've made several calls to the PA Office of Inspector General, as well as my county assistance office (Lehigh). I've sent address change information to them to prove that I did not live with my ex starting 07/2011.

Neither office seems to care that I did not apply for those food stamps, that I did not get a food stamp card in my name, or that I was never notified that I was in any way attached to my ex's benefits.

The only information that I could get from them is that their records show that the benefits were in my name, on my SSN, and that if I lived with him then I am responsible.

Had I known about this then, I would have told them that I was working and there would have been no over payment. Yet neither office will even try to find the application or look into how they only sent my ex a food stamp card yet have the benefits under my name.

Since speaking with the OIG over the phone, and the county assistance office in person as well as over the phone is not accomplishing anything, what else can I do?
So did you eat any of the food bought by the live-in boyfriend? You can payback the overpayment. You benefitted from it.
 

commentator

Senior Member
Food stamp overpayments are like unemployment overpayments. They must be determined and investigated by the specific level of the agency that processes these things. Only when they are turned over to the prosecutor's office by the agency will they be taken through the court system and will you be in more serious trouble. People who fail to cooperate on the local level eventually get prosecuted at a higher level.

And from the sound of this, they are not buying your arguments. So what can you do? Pay up. Make arrangements to pay up. Perhaps you can do it over a period of time, but stop protesting that you won't pay. You are liable.

If you were living in the household, and you allowed your boyfriend to have access to your social security number and verification materials, and as someone else pointed out, you helped him eat the food, you were considered to be a liable person in your household and a co-conspirator in the plot to get food stamps though you were working. How do you know the card he received was in HIS name, not yours? Whether or not he did this without your knowledge, which is impossible to prove anyway, you are going to be charged with this overpayment. That's all there is to it. If you weren't aware of it, they feel you reasonably should have been.

It is never a good idea to jump over the system and try to discuss your fraud case with someone at a different level when the local level isn't finished with their dealing with you. Work with the people who are sending you the overpayment notices.

Remember, when they will not believe your arguments, that they hear same or similar sort of thing thousands of times a month. You got into a situation where you allowed this person to have access to your personal documents enough to get the stamps in the first place, including you as a member, or even as the head of household here, and that is what made you liable.
 
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