This story was originally published on Aug. 4 by THE CITY. Sign up here to get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to you each morning.
Early in July, two young workers in the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) told their supervisor, an employee of a Bronx nonprofit, that strangers had approached them on the street offering goods or cash in exchange for a debit card issued by SYEP.
“In one instance it was, ‘Hey, I can get you a new phone and new shoes and a new watch if you give me your SYEP card,’” the employee said. The other participant, he said, was offered money — more than he could earn in wages over the entire summer.
“In both cases our students were like, ‘No thank you,’ and they walked away.”
The NYPD’s Financial Crimes Task Force is now investigating what happened next, after a heist carried out via ATMs in mid-July yielded $17 million in withdrawals on some of the cards used to pay tens of thousands of summer workers in the city Department of Youth and Community Development’s Summer Youth Employment Program.
Each debit card had just a few hundred dollars in wage payments on it, and machines have low daily limits on how much can be withdrawn from an account, but participants in the scheme were nonetheless able to use the cards to extract tens of thousands of dollars.
The longtime program recruits temporary youth workers from age 14 to 24 and places them part-time in work sites around the city for a six-week period, usually for minimum wage. Placements range from social service organizations to fast food restaurants. The agency says 100,000 young people participate each year.
Across social media platforms, users had been posting for weeks about the scheme.
One influencer asked young people on the street about the scams — with one replying he had been scammed by “my mans, we went to school together.”
One Tiktok user even made a four-part AI-animated video titled “SYEP Worker Gives up his DashPay card.”
“Listen, bro, whatever you do, don’t give up your DashPay card,” says one young person in a SYEP t-shirt to another. His friend responds: “Bro, but it’s literally 30K in the bank, why wouldn’t I?”
Following similar reports, the nonprofit employee, who works at one of the largest SYEP sites in the city, asked contacts at other nonprofit organizations if they had also been hearing of workers getting offered cash for cards. They had, in some cases more than $2,500.
Many of the jobs, such as summer camps, require participants to wear t-shirts with a logo that advertises them as SYEP workers — “so they’re very identifiable as, like, ‘Oh, here’s a person we can target for the scam,’” the nonprofit employee said.
He and his colleagues ended up advising students not to wear the shirts, and not to say they were affiliated with SYEP if they were approached on the street.
The agency provided a general statement in response to questions from THE CITY about how the heist happened and how thieves obtained cards from program participants.
“For each of the past three years, DYCD and our nonprofit providers have educated 100,000 Summer Youth Employment Program young people about financial literacy. This summer, we are doing it again — with another record number of participants learning about finances while experiencing the world of work,” said DYCD spokesperson Mark Zustovich. “But we are deeply disturbed by scammers preying on our participants just as they started their work assignments to support themselves and their families.”
He added: “No taxpayer dollars have been lost, and DYCD quickly launched an investigation with the vendors who oversee the SYEP pay card system, to make sure our participants’ earnings are as secure as possible.”
Around 30,000 SYEP participants received the payment cards, according to DYCD, as an alternative to direct deposit — in contrast to some youth jobs programs elsewhere that require participants to have bank accounts as part of training in financial literacy .
DashPay, the company that administers the payment cards, did not respond to a request for comment.
Who foots the $17 million bill?
If no taxpayer dollars were lost, who’s paying?
According to David Tente, executive director of the ATM Industry Association, store owners’ insurance may cover some of the losses.
“If they’re taking cash out of the ATM, somebody’s on the hook for it,” he said. “If it is the responsibility of the merchant, then they probably — hopefully — have insurance to cover that.”
Jon Weilbaker, who owns around 1,000 ATMs across the city, says none of his machines were affected by the scheme — and that in order for the debit cards to yield the millions the NYPD says were stolen, someone would have had to hack the software systems that operate the network.
“Somehow the hackers were able to blow through the limit on the cards and set their own limit,” Weilbaker said, noting previous incidents involving transnational criminal operations that broke into U.S. ATM networks and evaded limits on withdrawals.
“They hire guys on the street basically and get them the cards, and then they go to the ATM machine and empty the ATM of the ATM’s cash,” he added.
Tente acknowledged that such hacks have been known to happen with gift cards, using processes that could potentially be adapted for debit payment cards.
Reports have also emerged suggesting that some program participants may be exploiting the system, too.
In early July, an adult staff member who works at a day camp and after-school program in Brooklyn began seeing reports on social media about the “SYEP method.” She had received no information from her employer, but asked the SYEP participant at her worksite about it.
“He basically explained to me, through the online platform there’s been a glitch, and through that glitch they can basically take out more than they were given,” she said.
“When I brought it up, he thought it was so funny because it’s such a hot topic and a norm for them, but it’s such a crazy thing for us because we’re like, ‘What the hell?’”
The staff member said she was concerned that younger participants might be pressured by older ones to take advantage of the glitch. TikToks claiming to depict withdrawals using SYEP cards showed multiple sequential withdrawals at the $200 limit on a single card, and another showed a negative $100,000 balance.
“Some of them are very, very, very young and impressionable,” she said.
Employers and supervisors emphasized the importance of the program.
SYEP “has really been one of the most beneficial youth programs in terms of preventing kids from getting involved in the juvenile justice system,” said the Bronx employee. “You’re like 20% less likely to be involved in some violent crime if you’re participating in SYEP. So there are a lot of really good things about the program.”
Gregory Morris, CEO of the New York City Employment and Training Coalition, an association that represents workforce development organizations, said the incident has put a damper on an annual ritual for young people finding their way in their first jobs.
“The providers that I know were excited about the summer. They were accomplishing interesting, valuable, meaningful things, putting young people to work on their first job pathways, and this was surprising, concerning, frustrating.”
