Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s administration is running a “Don’t Wait, Activate” ad campaign urging nearly 507,000 SNAP and Medicaid benefit recipients to switch to new chip-and-tap EBT cards before their old magnetic-stripe-only cards are deactivated on September 30. As of August 23, about 294,000 of those recipients, roughly 58%, had already activated their new cards.
Maryland became the fourth state to roll out EMV chip-and-tap EBT technology in July, joining a small group of states upgrading a payment system that’s remained on outdated magnetic-stripe technology for years after private credit cards moved to chip security. Current benefit balances transfer automatically to the new cards, and recipients don’t need to create an online account to activate one.
Why the Upgrade Is Happening Now
Magnetic-stripe-only cards are significantly easier to skim than chip-enabled ones, and benefit card skimming has become a persistent fraud problem nationally, with thieves cloning card data to drain SNAP and Medicaid balances before recipients even realize funds are missing. The chip-and-tap upgrade closes that specific vulnerability, though it required Maryland to run a public awareness campaign large enough to reach hundreds of thousands of recipients before the September 30 cutoff.
What Recipients Need to Do
Recipients can activate their new cards through the ebtEDGE Cardholder Portal, the ebtEDGE app, or by calling EBT Vendor Services at 1-800-997-2222. Anyone who hasn’t activated a new card by September 30 risks losing access to their benefits until they do, since the old magnetic-stripe cards will stop working entirely after that date.
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