Stories of anxiety and heartbreak are swirling around the surprise and seemingly well orchestrated hacking this week of assistance benefits received by Pueblo County residents.

Funding for food that came through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is missing from some Pueblo County residents’ accounts. Payment to some customers of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Family recipients have vanished.

Victims are left trying to figure out how to feed their families, get expensive insulin for diabetic children or diapers for their infants. A total of 135 cases of theft have been reported by Pueblo County Department of Human Services benefit recipients this week totaling $73,991 in losses.

According to the Pueblo County Department of Human Services, as of Friday afternoon, local residents affected include 24 adult financial customers who reported $16,723 in losses; 40 Temporary Assistance for Needy Family Colorado Works customers totaling $19,344 and 71 food benefit customers getting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits totaling $37,923.

A victim’s story

One of the victims is Amanda Welty-Soto who is raising two children and going to college in Pueblo. The 39-year-old is working toward becoming a paralegal.

In her case $540 of her $559 monthly TANF funding was stolen at 2:45 a.m. June 2 from a Wells Fargo bank ATM in Denver. It had just been deposited at midnight.

Thankfully she was able to take measures to protect her food funding.

“We are trying to get ourselves out of poverty and to have these funds taken away from us, is going to put a lot of people in a really bad situation,” Welty-Soto said. “When I look at the people who are affected I wish there was more empathy around the situation — they are messing with people’s livelihoods — they took my entire month,” of income.

Welty-Soto helps facilitate a support group of women who have worked together through career development classes. Instead of getting down about the theft she is through herself into research to see if she can help her fellow victims.

When she went to the Pueblo County Department of Human Services office at 320 W. 10th St. to make a report, she was surprised to see how many people were in the office making similar reports of theft.

“People were crying, some didn’t understand what was going on, some were angry,” she said.

The state’s response to the theft

“Any time benefits are stolen from Coloradans it is a concern to us,” said Jordan Saenz, deputy director of communications for the Colorado Department of Human Services. “However, we aren’t aware of any widespread theft or hack of TANF benefits statewide.”

Saenz said the state has received 2,470 reported instances of SNAP theft out of over 310,000 households that receive SNAP statewide. She said counties do not have to report TANF and adult financial theft to the state as they can reimburse those funds on their own.

“Coloradans do not have to report benefit theft to their local law enforcement, as the state can investigate these instances, but they are encouraged to report to law enforcement,” Saenz said.

In Welty-Soto’s case, she made a report with the Denver Police Department because that is where the theft took place. Other Puebloans have reported theft to law enforcement agencies in and around the Denver-metro area where their funds were extracted.

Pueblo Police and the Pueblo County Sheriff’s office have not received any theft reports related to the cases as of Friday.

Tips to avoid theft

Pueblo County Department of Human Services encourages customers to add a layer of protection by downloading the ebtEDGE application on their smart phones.

There are some safety and protection features available on that app that allow the customer to add additional layers of protection such as the “freeze card function” which would allow the customer to “freeze” the card when it is not in use, thus not allowing anyone else to use it as well.

There is also a “protect my account” tab that allows the customer to block internet and out of state transactions, the department advises.

According to state officials, those who lost benefits due to fraud can follow the below steps to get their benefits reinstated, and in the meantime, “we encourage individuals to utilize available resources such as food banks, community organizations, and emergency assistance programs,” Saenz said.

• The benefit recipient must report the lost or stolen benefit to the local county office that they reside in. In Pueblo County that is at 320 W. 10th St.

• The county department will replace the missing benefits if the loss is not questionable to the county, and if the loss was beyond the client’s control.

• Welty-Soto said in her case she had to present both her identification and her EBT card in order to process a claim. She also filed out an affidavit of stolen benefits and was told it could take up to 30 days to receive reimbursement of the funds, while she has heard others report they could expect the process to take six weeks.

• Colorado Works recipients are also encouraged to sign up to receive their benefits via direct deposit, as it is a more secure option for receiving their benefits.

• Clients can also protect benefits by freezing their EBT cards to prevent new purchases, PIN changes, and ATM transactions. They can access this feature at any time by logging into the MyCoBenefits mobile app.

• Welty-Soto said she now freezes her card and unfreezes it only when she is checking out to pay for a purchase.

• Clients can also block out-of-state or online transactions using the ebtEDGE mobile app or Cardholder Portal.

Where to get help

Catholic Charities of Pueblo, 429 W. 10th St., 719-544-4233, pueblocharities.org

Posada Homeless Shelter and Services, 225 Colorado Ave., 719-545-8776, posadapueblo.org

Pueblo Community Soup Kitchen, 422 W. Seventh St., 719-545-6540, pueblosoupkitchen.org

Pueblo Rescue Mission, 728 W. Fourth St. 719-225-3491, pueblorescuemission.org

Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado, 100 Greenhorn Drive, 719-296-6995, careandshare.org

Salvation Army – Pueblo Corps Community Center, 520 W. 13th St., 719-543-3656, pueblo.salvationarmy.org

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Chieftain reporter Tracy Harmon covers business news. She can be reached by email at tharmon@chieftain.com or via X, formerly Twitter, at twitter.com/tracywumps. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo families report $70K in theft of assistance benefits