HAR §17-681-52. Methods of payment

(a) Financial assistance and employment and child care payments to eligible persons shall be issued in the form of EBT or imprest check. (1) The general method of payment shall be by EBT to the eligible primary payee. (2) The money shall be transferred to an EBT account or direct deposited into a financial institution account designated by the primary payee. (3) The EBT account shall be accessed by any individual who has an EBT card and a valid PIN. (A) The household’s cash benefits may be accessed through ATMs or through POS devices at retail establishments who are participating in the cash-back option under the EBT program. (B) The department shall provide two free ATM transactions per month and recipients will be assessed a [recipients will be assessed a] transaction fee for all subsequent transactions. The household may also be assessed a surcharge fee, which is §17-681-52 681-25 unrelated to the transaction fee, on all ATM transactions by the ATM owner. (4) Benefits shall be issued by imprest check if necessary to meet requirements as described in section 17-681-9. (b) Occasionally an ATM may misdispense less cash to a recipient than what was requested. The cause of the misdispensement may be due to a system time-out or a problem with the telecommunication line anywhere between the ATM, the processor, the Gateway or the EBT system. Whenever a recipient experiences a misdispensement at an ATM, the recipient shall: (1) Report the error to the EBT customer service to file a trouble ticket; (2) Report the problem of the misdispensement to the unit to request a provisional credit; and (3) Sign a statement attesting to the misdispensement and provide all the pertinent information, i.e., the date, time, location and the amount of the misdispensement. The client shall also acknowledge that if the audit investigation of the misdispensement proves to be false: (A) The amount of the provisional credit that was credited into the household’s EBT account shall be immediately debited from the household’s EBT account; (B) If the balance in the household’s EBT account is insufficient to cover the amount of the provisional credit, the provisional credit amount shall be debited from the benefits deposited in the next month; (C) If no funds are deposited into the EBT account in the next month, or if the department was unable to debit the account before the household accessed the benefits, a claim in the amount equal to the provisional credit amount shall be established against the household; and §17-681-52 681-26 (D) The fraud provisions as specified in chapter 17-604.1 shall be imposed against the household. (c) If the household received more cash from the ATM than what was originally requested, the household shall be responsible to report the overage to the ATM owner and to the household’s case worker. The household may be liable for any excess amount that was misdispensed by the ATM, and may be subject to the requirements specified in section 17-681-57. (d) SNAP benefits to eligible households shall be issued in the form of EBT. The EBT account shall be accessed by any individual who has an EBT card and a valid PIN. SNAP benefits may be accessed through: (1) POS devices at SNAP certified retail stores that have the capability to electronically process EBT transactions; or (2) Manual off-line voucher process for those SNAP certified retailers who do not have a POS device but are certified by the EBT contractor to accept EBT transactions. Manual off-line vouchers may also be used by POS merchants when normal EBT electronic processing is not possible. Recipients will not be assessed any transaction fees for purchases made with their SNAP benefits. [Eff 8/01/98; am 10/18/01; am 9/11/03; am and comp 6/24/13] (Auth: HRS §346-14) (Imp: 7 C.F.R. §§274.2(a) and (b), 274.3(a), 274.7)