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Title 7: SNAP Page 22 Iowa Department of Health and Human Services Employees’ Manual Chapter H: Adjustments Request for Replacement of SNAP Revised October 11, 2024 Replacement of Food When an EBT Card… Procedure: Do not replace SNAP benefits that a household claims were used without its permission. Send the details of this type of complaint to the SPIRS Help Desk. Central office will research it. If it is appropriate, central office will tell you to make a replacement and the amount to replace. Benefits used after the card is reported as lost or stolen can be replaced. Therefore, it is important to immediately deactivate a lost or stolen EBT card in EPPIC™. A report of a lost or stolen EBT card left on voice mail or by email is considered received when the message is retrieved. The household is responsible for loss of benefits used up to the time the Department actually retrieves a message. Document when the message was left and when retrieved. Comment: Conduent is Iowa’s electronic benefits transfer service provider. EBT customer service is available to all households 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All SNAP households are provided with the EBT customer service phone number at the time the card is issued. That number is also on the back of the card. Replacement of Food Destroyed in a Household Misfortune Legal reference: 7 CFR 274.6 A household misfortune may cause a household’s food to be destroyed. Examples of household misfortunes are fire, flood, tornado, power outage, accident, or other similar events. The disaster could affect only that household or any number of households. When the client reports that food purchased with SNAP was destroyed in a household misfortune, issue a replacement unless: ▪ The household failed to report the loss within 10 days of the date the household discovered their food loss, or ▪ The household was issued an allotment under special FNS-approved disaster- issuance procedures in the same month as the replacement request. ▪ The loss is questionable. Determine if the amount of the loss is reasonable in relation to the nature of the loss. A power outage will generally only spoil refrigerated and frozen foods. Water damage or fire can spoil all types of food.