CORPUS CHRISTI, Teas — A single mother sids she placed an order for more than $1,000 worth of groceries from an H-E-B Curbside pick-up service. But something happened when she went to pick them up.
So she called the Troubleshooters for help and now there's an active police investigation.
Jessica Reyna is a single mother of 5 who said she works full-time and takes classes at night so she can get off food stamps.
She also said she regularly shops at the H-E-B on Weber and Holly, but rarely uses the curbside service to shop for her groceries. But on Thursday Jan. 4, she did.
Reyna said that H-E-B provided her with a order pick-up number when she placed her order, totaling $1,044. 29. It was scheduled for curbside pick-up Friday afternoon Jan. 5 between 2 and 2:30 p.m.
But Reyna told the Troubleshooters that on her way to the store, H-E-B let her know somebody else had already picked up her $1,000+ order.
"And they said well he had certain information that matched you. I said no. Like what? Basically, he had my first name and he had a picture of an order number, not the actual text. And he didn't even have my last name right. He gave them 2 different last names, and they still gave him my order," Reyna recalled.
HEB's Curbside Policy states the customer is to text the number indicated on the curbside sign to let the store know you've arrived and they'll load your groceries straight to your car.
While still at the store trying to get this resolved, and getting nowhere, Reyna contacted Corpus Christi Police, and they showed up and made a report for theft. According to Reyna, they also accessed surveillance video of the person picking up her groceries. The Troubleshooters have confirmed this with police, who said they have begun an active investigation.
On Monday Jan. 8, Reyna said she contacted H-E-B's corporate office in San Antonio and told them what had happened to her.
She first told her story to the Troubleshooters in person on Wednesday, Jan. 10. Then Troubleshooters contacted the company's local media contact to let them know we were working on this story.
By 6 p.m. Friday night, Jan. 12, Reyna was able to pick up her order for more than one thousand dollars worth of groceries.
Now Reyna has made allegations that someone's been hacking into her account and stealing her food stamps. She's contacted the Department of Health and Human Services about it.
"Food stamps don't know who it is, but they told me to use curbside service and use the entire benefit at one order to help them track down who's stealing," she said.
In May, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission said it had experienced increased reports of scams related to SNAP benefits, or the state's food stamp program, through skimming and cloning.
The Troubleshooters reached out to HHS to ask about Reyna's case. The department said they will look into it and let us know what they can.
