Jennifer Kuhnle works about 15 hours a week in a child-care center, studies elementary education at IPFW and gets by using food stamps.

Early this month, Kuhnle went to the drive-up at a Papa Murphy’s, which accepts food stamps from customers for uncooked dishes. She paid for the food using her EBT card.

Then, Kuhnle says, the clerk asked for her personal identification number, and she provided it.

A few days later, Kuhnle noticed that she had less money in her food stamp account than she thought. When she went to the grocery a few days after that, she was shocked to see that only about $25 was left in her account. About $230 had disappeared.

A week before Christmas, and more than two weeks before her account would be recharged, Kuhnle, who has a 4-year-old and an 8-month-old, had barely enough money left to buy milk, bread, butter and other basics.

Kuhnle called her caseworker, who instructed her to call the company that handles the card. After speaking to them, she discovered a slew of charges had been made to her account at the restaurant chain she had visited, sometimes more than 10 a day.

Kuhnle called the police, who she says told her to call back when she had the name of the person who had done it.

She then called the restaurant chain, which conducted its own investigation and called the Indiana State Police, who investigated.

A message left for the restaurant owner Wednesday afternoon wasn’t immediately returned.

The trooper who handled the case and interviewed Kuhnle said he turned the information over to the county prosecutor’s office, and it is now in their hands.

Kuhnle, meanwhile, spoke to her caseworker and was told nothing could be done about her drained food stamp account.

She has gotten no reimbursement from the business or the company that handles the food stamp cards, and with about a week before she gets her next month’s allotment, she still has practically no money.

Kuhnle certainly wants the person who drained her account held responsible, but she also wanted the public to know: Be careful with your food stamp card, and never, ever give your PIN to anyone.

I spoke with Neal Moore, in charge of communications for the Family and Social Services Administration, about Kuhnle’s problem. Moore said that though a huge number of people receive food stamps, cases like Kuhnle’s are rare. Only about five have occurred in the last year.

Kuhnle’s big mistake was telling someone her PIN, something that all food stamp recipients are told to never do. No one with an EBT card should ever give anyone the number, and no retailer should ever ask for it, Moore said.

“The clerk was in violation by asking for it,” Moore said.

The problem could go further than Kuhnle, though. A retailer could be at risk when things like this happen.

“It behooves them to reimburse the victim,” Moore said.

For now, it’s a waiting game for Kuhnle – waiting to see whether any legal action is taken against the person who used her card, and waiting until late next week, when she will get another month’s food stamps and be able to afford to go to the grocery.