Posted on 10/14/2013 4:04:56 PM PDT by abb
SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) -
KSLA News 12 obtained video of overflowing shopping carts, excited shoppers, and empty shelves throughout Walmart in Springhill, Louisiana. The frenzy was reportedly created this weekend by a food stamp glitch in the system. That glitch allowed EBT card users to seemingly shop without a limit. But there was a limit the whole time.
According to the state, the retailer is on the hook for the overages.
The Department of Children and Family Services oversees those benefits, called SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
DCFS tells KSLA News 12 that no EBT card is ever limitless, and that when these outages happen, the retailer has a responsibility to implement emergency procedures. Those procedures include placing a phone call and verbally approving a spending limit for the customer. Trey Williams with DCFS says some retailers chose not to do that.
"These businesses are only reimbursed for the benefits on the card, and they are completely responsible. So if someone had 50 dollars on their card, and they spent 100, the retailer, in this case Walmart, would be on the hook for the other fifty.
So, isn't this fraud? The state has a way of tracking welfare fraud with GPS based software. DCFS knows who purchased what, and how much was spent. That information is available to be passed on to law enforcement, should it be requested. The information is there, the question is now, what will they do with it?
Walmart is making a fortune off EBT. I think that’s the real reason they went into the grocery business.
Bankers were fined a huge amount if they turned down loans to blacks. It was called redlining and it forced the banks to make the loans.
My wife has it in Pocatello. She drives it hard. New in 2008. Has 90000 miles. I put about 6000 of those on with 3 round trips to San Diego. First and last hybrid. The leather seats with seat heat are nice in -15F weather. The gas mileage will never repay the higher initial cost. The tax incentive was less than half of what was promised. Net loss vs a similar gas only model.
My 86.5 Nissan PU also has 90,000 miles. Sold my electric scooter ‘cuz I didn’t want to replace the SLAs again. But it was a fun bike for around the neighborhood. Latest project on the bikes has been installing a compression release on the CR500; I’m too old to make much use of it now but will ride it around the ORV parking lot someday. Still trail ride on occasion but generally stay within walking distance of the truck lol.
This is what happened with a particular demographic when Walmart tried refusing the cards:
Walmart decided to write off their grocery section rather than have a riot and looting even that might injure their workers, other shoppers, damage the store and equipment and end up with lots of OTHER items (TV’s, electronics, housewares, etc) leaving as well.
BTW the pic at that link is a stock Walmart photo, not one from the store in the article itself.
I live about 120 miles from that store. Friends of ours were at our local super walmart Saturday morning. Upon hearing her card was invalid one welfare recipient exclaimed ‘imma burn down dis store!’. There was a general clamor, agreement and uproar among her fellow demographic and our friends got out of there as quickly as they could.
Tell that to the multinational and vertically-integrated food corporations who are the ones responsible both for making the higher-margin convenience products available and maintaining their availability even after several congressional attempts to eliminate them. Wal-Mart and their distributors alone would be happy to spend tens of millions of lobbying dollars toward the cause.
Not sure, but if they stopped accepting EBT, I'd likely start shopping there again. Their grocery selection isn't too bad but I avoid the place because of the clientele
Well, Walmart was apparently foolish enough to go ahead and approve all purchases without any way of accessing the balance verification system. It was a pretty stupid move to put faith in the very group of people you can trust the least. Walmart should have to take the lumps for being stupid rather than the taxpayer. I'm not a Walmart hater, but they sure made a bonehead decision and it should seek recovery on their own dime AND cooperate with authorities to prosecute each and every one of them who took advantage and stole from them and defrauded the system.
If you receive a check from your employer, the I.R.S., any number of sources and because of an error you get a check for $1,000,000 instead of the amount you knew it should be, $1,000. Go ahead, cash it, see who is held criminally liable.
It’s the same for people who ran up ridiculous tabs on their food stamp cards, they are liable, not W-M, not tax payers not anybody else. It was a criminal act.
I’,m a W-M stock holder too, I hate to see it happen but we both know that W-M (you and me) will eat these charges.
I miss riding a big thumper in the dirt. My work situation wiped out any hope of pursuing that further.
Supposedly Walmart makes 25-40% of its money from EBT. I take it that’s the grocery business and was something I read here yesterday.
http://theadvocate.com/home/7320109-125/state-taxpayers-dont-have-to
State: Taxpayers don’t have to pay for food stamps glitch
By MICHELLE MILLHOLLON
For Wal-Mart shoppers in Mansfield and Springhill, the chain’s “always low prices” got ridiculously low following a glitch in the food stamp system.
The good news: Taxpayers aren’t on the hook for what was likely an expensive mistake for the big box retailer, state officials said Monday.
A failure at Xerox Corp. took down the electronic benefit transfer system Saturday for several hours in 17 states, including Louisiana.
Media in Maine, Maryland, Florida and other states affected by the glitch reported retailers in those state simply turned away EBT users.
Others followed the emergency procedure that allows up to $50 in authorized purchases per patron.
At Wal-Marts in Mansfield and Springhill, cashiers allowed EBT recipients to make purchases even though they could not check their card balances. The cashiers stored the transactions so they could run them later when the system rebounded.
Wal-Mart’s policy apparently turned an October Saturday into Black Friday.
An unknown number of customers emptied the shelves, piled their carts high with food and spent well beyond their EBT debit card limits.
snip
WalMart should blacklist the card numbers that were involved with massive theft.
Is it racist to use a term like “blacklist”?
And how about the use of the term “Black Friday?!?!”
(sorry Ted, it had to be done)
Never was it this much fun
Everything looks good to me
My beady eyes see some frozen fries
And I just can't let them be
Well it's a free-for-all
And I heard it said
You take just what you want
The stakes are high and so am I
It's in the air toni-i-ight
We all are there with our
Cheshire grins I got eyes on free food
No stinkin’ card limits are in place
No tellin what I might do
Well looky here ain’t no gubmint sting
Food card magic's in my hand
When in doubt I whip it out
My cart total’s over a grand
It's a free-for-all
Ooh, baby
Ooh, I got ya
Aaaaaaa
Not if you refuse to participate.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.