The approximate Customer Authentication cost avoidance is as follows (rounded to millions): Approximately 75-83 percent of the applicants who opt-out from answering the automated customer authentication questions are approved after the applicant has been manually identified and their eligibility for benefits has been determined. Since 2015, the monthly average of applicants that choose to opt out from Customer Authentication oscillates between 8 and 11 percent. If they choose not to do so, or are unable to answer the questions, then they are required to go to a service center and have a face-to-face authentication with a member of our staff. If the applicant opts out, DCF must make contact to complete a verbal authentication by asking specific questions only the true individual would know the answers to. While completing the web application, the individual comes to a screen that provides information about the authentication process, that they can either complete or not (opt out). The tool also returns data checks to ensure the applicant is not incarcerated or deceased.Īuthentication confirms that the person who completed the application (and whose identity verification-such as a driver’s license, ID card or other form of identification- may already be on file in the case record) is the same individual. This tool leverages technology that has been used in the financial sector for years, presenting several questions that only the actual person should be able to answer.
#FOOD STAMPS FLORIDA VERIFICATION#
The Customer Authentication/Identity Verification tool was implemented in a partnership with our vendor statewide in August 2013. DCF obtained a federal waiver in 2012 to implement an automated identity verification solution. DCF officials tell Action News Jax that since the program went online, it has saved taxpayers more than $660 million.ĭCF sent Action News Jax the following information:Ībout 93 percent of all Florida food assistance applications are received electronically.
#FOOD STAMPS FLORIDA MANUAL#
Of those, about 75 to 83 percent are approved with manual identity verification. We learned 8 to 11 percent of applicants opt out of the verification process. In 2013, the agency began using a new customer verification program to help combat fraud. Zomorodian said the conviction rates may actually be higher because some cases may involve charges that were upgraded.Īccording to officials with the Florida Department of Children and Families, 93 percent of food assistant applications are made online. “So we have to divide our resources the best way we know how." And we also have theft and fraud,” Zomorodian said. The decision to send a defendant to the diversion program depends on several factors, including criminal history and the amount of public money that was taken. Zomorodian told Action News Jax each case is handled differently. "This is taxpayer money that we'd like to get back for the public good." "We're not dealing with monopoly money," Assistant State Attorney Cyrus Zomorodian said.
And I got a really bad job that's barely helping us, barely. "I regret it because I'm paying for it now," she said. Although grateful for having avoided formal charges, she said she lost her job and is on the verge of being evicted. The woman was caught using someone else’s food stamps. "I saw it and in my desperate need, came out and I took it,” she said. The local mother of three asked we protect her identity. Out of 196 opened cases in 2015, 43 led to convictions and 187 cases were referred to diversion.Īction News Jax spoke with a woman in one of those cases. The vast majority -142 - were sent to a diversion program. Robinson’s case is one of only a few that make it to trial.ĭocuments from State Attorney Melissa Nelson’s office show in 2016, 145 public assistance fraud cases were opened in Duval County, but only six led to convictions. The cost to taxpayers was more than $1 million. Prosecutors said he used a local seafood business to collect bogus food stamp reimbursements, which he traded for cocaine. In June, Leroy Robinson was found guilty of wire fraud in federal court.
0 kommentar(er)
