Suspicious CalFresh Notice of Approval Eligibility Documents
This document presents suspicious cases of CalFresh Approval eligibility documents that should be taken into consideration when reviewing documents.
Misspellings
In some cases, the word ‘California’ is misspelled at the top right of the letterhead:
The word California missing from the title 'California Department of Social Services'.
Also review the number of people in the household, because sometimes there might be a household
discrepancy which is not allowed. In the example below, we can see that the left part of the notice states that the household family size consists of two people, but at the right we can see that the ‘Household Size’ section from the right states that the number of household members is three.
W-2 Eligibility Document
Copy A is the version of the W-2 Form that some employers are required to send directly to the Social Security Administration (SSA). It is printed in red ink and is not intended for employees or personal use.
SSA Verification of Benefits
When receiving a Verification of Benefits letter from the SSA, BO Agents need to check that the applicant is not below the retirement age, which is 62 years. To do so, BO Agents need to review the DOB provided on the enrollment and make sure it is over the required age.
Note: From November 21st, 2025, this letter is not valid for CalFresh enrollment.
San Diego County CalFresh Notice of Approval (NOA)
Indicators of Tampering:
- Formatting Issues: Inconsistent text alignment and spacing (e.g., “Worker Hours”, “24Hour information”, “1586El CajonCA” lack proper spacing).
- Grammar/Spacing Errors: Examples: “highestutility deduction”(missing space), “Sectio,n s)” (punctuation error)
- Address Mismatch: Recipient’s address lists Los Angeles, but the issuing county is San Diego
- Formatting Differences: Official template includes form code and revision date—absent in the example
- Missing Official Content: Official NOA template includes:
- “Because you received CalFresh benefits right away, we did not require you to give us the following verification…”
- This section is missing in the suspicious document
