Louisiana Suspends EBT Cards for Food Stamp Cheats

reply to post by nixie_nox


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Walmart is standing by its decision Saturday night to allow shoppers in Louisiana to continue making purchases during the Electronic Benefit Transfer card system outage, which prevented card limits and balances from showing up. “We know we made the right choice,” Walmart spokesman Kory Lundberg told ABCNews.com Tuesday. The gluttonous shopping spree occurred at two stores, one in Mansfield and the other in Springhill, as word traveled that Walmart was still allowing EBT cardholders to make purchases despite the outage. “Some customers were buying eight to 10 grocery carts full of food,” Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd told ABC News, and Mansfield Police Chief Gary Hobbs said “some shoppers left with up to eight carts of food and then went back for more.” But the “jig was up,” Lynd said, when around 9 p.m., the stores announced the system was restored and EBT cards were reflecting balances again.

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WalMart will have to pay for hundreds of thousands of dollars of groceries bought by Louisiana food stamp recipients after a computer glitch gave them unlimited funds on their government-issued credit cards. The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, which oversees the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card program in the state, said WalMart could have instituted an emergency $50 limit for each customer, but chose not to - and as a result, the retail giant must foot the sizable bill. It comes after dozens of welfare families with EBT cards picked the shelves bare in stores in Springhill and Mansfield on Saturday and walked away with up to ten shopping carts filled with meat and other groceries - in a spending frenzy described by local officials as 'worse than Black Friday'. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... XV Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

wall mart IS eating the cost the people with the EBT cards aren't being asked to pay it back they are just shutting off the cards of people who committed willful fraud and got caught rightfully so

www.naturalnews.com... natural news so take that for what its worth but pretty much all links tell the same story people figured out they didnt have limtis and they filled up to 9 carts of food.

his happened at Wal-Mart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA. As local news station KSLA reports: Shelves in Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA were reportedly cleared Saturday night, when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though they were not showing limits. The chaos that followed ultimately required intervention from local police, and left behind numerous carts filled to overflowing, apparently abandoned when the glitch-spurred shopping frenzy ended. The story goes on to report that one woman who racked up $700 worth of groceries had only 49 cents on her card. That's $699.51 in theft. Learn more: www.naturalnews.com...

yeah this is why i have no pity for these people and laugh that they lost their benefits for scamming the system hopefully they think long and hard about their decisions over hte next year of no bennies and learn from it and dont try to scam the system again

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just saying the videos are out there if you took the time to look and its funny how the minute they knew the cards would not work they just left everything where it was and walked out of the store

I'd like to add some perspective here to clarify just why I believe both Walmart AND the shoppers deserve whatever comes from this, and they both deserve it equally.

First, I found this story which was very interesting to read...Here are some highlights.

Police were called to Walmart locations in Mansfield, La., and Springhill, La., on Saturday as shoppers cleaned out store shelves.

Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd said some customers were pushing more food than any household could store in a refrigerator and freezer.

but...of course..not their fault, eh? Oh..but wait, I did say BOTH parties were at fault..so about Walmart?

The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services' spokesman Trey Williams said the retailers who chose not to use the emergency procedures that limit sales up to $50 per cardholder during an emergency would be responsible for any additional amount spent over eligible benefit balances.

Source

Then, I found this second story, that adds a bit more....

Walmart workers phoned their corporate headquarters to ask how they should handle all the shoppers with unlimited, government-funded spending limits, and were told to keep the registers ringing.

"We did make the decision to continue to accept EBT cards during the outage so that they could get food for their families," Walmart representative Kayla Whaling told KSLA. She added that Walmart was, "fully engaged and monitoring the situation and transactions during the outage."

yeah, I gather they were..... It notes that they also locked the store to new customers because fire code .,...FIRE CODE...was becoming an issue. Who hasn't been in a Walmart? How many does it TAKE to actually get fire code capacity numbers into it??

Shoppers gave mixed reactions to the incident, with one man in the Springhill store told KSLA it was simply "human reaction" to stock-up when given the opportunity.

Source

That's not stocking up. It's looting. Walmart actively assisted and the first story notes that other retailers in the area also noticed the problem and they HALTED SALES until the issue was resolved, rather than help in the outright robbery of the EBT system.

Both stories have video and images of the lines upon lines of carts down the isles, stuffed and overflowing. Also the empty freezer and cooler areas...presumably in the carts that were largely abandoned when Walmart announced the game was up and the account balances were restored.

.....Walmart stores called Bentonville Headquarters, as was reported when this happened. Bentonville told them to keep it running and sell out. Well.... They should own their half of the crime for it. (RICO almost comes to mind... -evil grin- )

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Sorry wrabbit, We cant hold corporation accountable.

They are just doing their job trying to make money any way they can.

Its always on the citizen, reactions to an unfair system are no excuse, period.

ketsuko
reply to post by nixie_nox

 

As some were explaining at the time, some EBT cards serve a dual purpose with another type of assistance money on them and both balances were down. The TVs were "legitimate" in the sense that they are a type of good that could be purchased, although the size and number of them in the carts were not at all legit.

My understanding is that Walmart had a provision in place to help their customers through while the EBT card system was offline. Part of their contingency plan was a software mode where EBT cards would be processed and then reconciled when the systems were online and sync'd up again. The problem was that the software mode did not have a limit in place for the following scenarios:
1) Per transaction limit and a total limit based on the sum of all transactions for a single EBT account#.
2) limit purchasing to food/pharmacy and exclude electronics/home goods


This could have been good PR for Walmart if they had a $100 limit or some other manageable amount in place that a single EBT account could purchase with. Most families could probably get through the weekend and maybe even week with that much in groceries and a bit of planning. Should they continue to accept EBT cards and have a system failure again, I hope they employ something like this. They can always consider raising the limit if the problem lingered, maybe make that a set amount on a weekly basis if they know the system is due back online sometime.

What they did in this case was really poorly managed, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they meant well and wanted to be there for their customers. I am not a fan of Walmart and do not shop there unless absolutely necessary but I have to say, they did extend some relief to those who were planning on feeding their families with some ebt funds and got caught off guard by the system shutdown. Kudo's for that anyhow.

Now that the dust has settled and such, every person who made purchases well in excess of what they knew was a typical amount, they should have a portion like 1/2 of their normal funds deducted until they have paid it off and if they manage to find employment before it is paid in full, they should have the same amount deducted from their pay (garnishment) or be given a payment plan to follow with the threat of IRS refund withholding should they fail that.

This is theft, I am aware of it and know that a lot of people could have been prosecuted for fraudulently abusing the system. I think, however, that stuffing the jails full of folks who were already depending on the gov't for help isn't the answer. A payback mechanism seems to be the best answer. Denying them assistance for a full year is probably going to leave a lot of needy children, not to mention the adults that brought this on, in a very tough situation. I wish they had a better option for those that truly need help.

reply to post by beezzer


I have no problem with personal responsibility...my problem is with PEOPLE LIKE YOU who like to sit on high horses, while demonizing the poor. all the while comparing this situation with murder, drugs and assaults...when its clear you're reaching just to get a couple stars or are you upset those thieves got a lil more food while paying then you did that month....i see the mentality of MOST OF YOU on this site...its sickening!!!!

beatbox
reply to post by beezzer

 

I have no problem with personal responsibility...my problem is with PEOPLE LIKE YOU who like to sit on high horses, while demonizing the poor. all the while comparing this situation with murder, drugs and assaults...when its clear you're reaching just to get a couple stars or are you upset those thieves got a lil more food while paying then you did that month....i see the mentality of MOST OF YOU on this site...its sickening!!!!

edit on 8-11-2013 by beatbox because: (no reason given)

So you have no problem with personal responsibility, yet you don't think it should apply to someone based on their income?

The rest of your post is just silly.

reply to post by beatbox


I have been poor...I don't see anyone here "demonizing the poor."

It's NOT easy to rise above and in some cases, it's a lifelong struggle but myself anf MANY others do make it happen. It builds character but it also gives one a built-in BS shield as well because "we know" that many times "being poor" is a choice.

The "mentality" here you may be judging yourself is more like an audience of hard working, working poor, struggling, or other like-minded individuals who are trying to understand a system, government, and society that appears to currently "reward" bad behavior repeatedly on both a personal and corporate level.

Dog eat dog, entitlement, and "I'm going to get what's mine because I can/I deserve it" attitudes are what's causing many of us to lose a bit of our tolerance for such a demonstration of "in your face" you've got it and I'll take it actions.

beatbox
reply to post by beezzer

 

I have no problem with personal responsibility...my problem is with PEOPLE LIKE YOU who like to sit on high horses, while demonizing the poor. all the while comparing this situation with murder, drugs and assaults...when its clear you're reaching just to get a couple stars or are you upset those thieves got a lil more food while paying then you did that month....i see the mentality of MOST OF YOU on this site...its sickening!!!!

edit on 8-11-2013 by beatbox because: (no reason given)

You know. Had these people gone through with their shopping and accidentally gone a few dollars or even $20 to $50 dollars over, this wouldn't be an issue. However, these people outright looted like the world was coming to an end. They had more food in their carts than anyone could ever store. Do you know what they were going to likely do with it? They were probably going to sell it for cash - cash that could be used to buy whatever they liked. It's not like they were actually starving or even wanted the food for eating in most cases.

reply to post by beezzer


seems that he believes in personal responsibility....as long as your not poor or that bad decisions adults make dont effect their kids...seems to think we sit up on our high horses and judge all the poor like Zeus sitting atop Olympus when in reality we want the rules to apply to every one equally. if you steal you deserve some form of punishment and should take responsibility for your actions and if that has negitive consequences for your children perhaps they should have thought about that before they tried to game the system set up to give them a hand up not a hand out.

Of note to the topic not one person mentioned in the articles is saying that they are going to arrest these people for theft (so they are already getting out of jail time) just that the ones who were caught stealing/scamming the system will not have benefits for a year not that they have to pay wall mart back.

the heartless corporation that is wallmart is eating the cost for this as it should be as they decided to let the transactions go through but that still does not excuse the fact that these people knew they were stealing and told as many people they could find that the system was broken and the time was now to game it.

yes we should not demonize the poor for poops and giggles but that does not give them cart balanche to just be bad humans just because they are poor,being poor should never be a get out of jail free card or an excuse for wrong doing especially with all the food banks and the like that exist to help these people,they can ask neighbors or churches etc for help among dozens of other programs designed to help the needy and if they do get help from these sources they certainly should not scam them just because the system broke that day

calling out scammers and thieves for what they are does not = well we hate the poor all of them least not in the real world perhaps in yours........but bet your bupkis we hate the scammers and the like because they gave us reason to hate them(scammers not the poor).

you know by trying to game the system set in place to help people thus hurting their fellow poor so if you wanna get mad at any one for "attacking the poor" get mad at the scammers who just made it that much harder for people who actually need it to get it with out stigma or judgement as with all the media attention this got i bet support for welfare and the like will take a few hits because of the actions of a few the many suffer.

im with you my bunny friend! personal responsibility goes a long way in this day and age mostly because so many people try to bypass it for their personal gain that when we actually see it we are so flabbergasted because it has been on the decline for the past 12ish years.

TLDR hating people who game the system does not= hating the poor

nixie_nox
I didn't see any of this footage. Now some of you are claiming that they had tvs and other such things in their carts. If that this the case, that is all on Walmart, as they are agreed to accept the EBT cards and it is up to them to enforce it. If they were allowing people to by tvs, and other stuff, that isn't food on an EBT card, Walmart should swallow that cost.

That's messed up. Allow the crap they don't need but penalize the food purchase? Should be the other way around. They should be penalized and have funds withheld from the non food funds. Snap funds can only be used on food items. The cards show two balances. The cash for anything and food only. The cash for anything monthly allotments are the ones they should have dropped for a year if they are going to enforce a penalty.

Walmart should be pay for the food and be owed by the customer for the other crap.

beezzer
If the bank made an error and I suddenly had 50 thousand in the bank and spent it all for my family, I would still be liable for that "theft".

Even if it is my family that suffers as a result.

These people who stole from the system deserve to be punished. It's a damned shame that children have to suffer. Maybe the state needs to take the children away from parents that would steal without thought to the consequences of their actions.

Good on Jindal.

I am sorry I have to agree with you on this one. Everyone I know that is on SNAP pretty much knows what their balance is. Even if they don't know to the penny they know within 5 dollars. Anyone that was rang out over that amount, should be punished and punished severely. It is precisely because of parasites like this that those that would benefit the most from a helping hand frequently don't qualify for it.

benrl
Banks cheat the system crash the economy, not so much as a whisper of legal action.

Poor do it, NO FOOD FOR A YEAR!!!

Yep! Bilk gazillions of old people out of their life savings, and small businesses out of their investments, with junk bonds and you're a philanthropist (seriously have you seen Michael Milliken's profile?) but if you steal bread you go to jail.

They gave what is probably the worst-case example. Probably the vast, vast majority of them are nothing more than a little bit over what they thought they had.

I think whatever was spent should be known. And what is known should be balanced against their food stamps at say, 35% until it is paid off, so they'd only get 65% until then, after which they would return to their full level.

Wiping out food for a year in a population that is dominantly elderly/child is problematic, regardless of what "objective judgment" about the behavior brings.

Sure, I can be objective and say I wouldn't do it, but then again, I am not desperate, and not possibly hoping that yeah it will probably go over, but they'll probably just charge it back against my account.

That's not "you're a criminal and deserve to starve for a year" deserving, that is "you have poorly managed your allotted funds, although granted you had help from both vendors and system failure, and you will pay any overage debt you have incurred."

Our culture really needs to learn to make a spectrum consideration of behavior. There are many behaviors which are objectively wrong, and may even reflect conscious intent to be wrong, but they reflect a poor judgment for which they should be responsible for compensatory behavior or payment in some fashion -- as opposed to harsh misery or prison. Starving people, just like jailing them for long terms, does not make them better people. It just makes them more desperate, more rabid, and often more successful at committing crimes they might never have devolved to had their situation not become what it did. Dealing with people with strictness yet compassion would go a long way.

By the way, for all the folks who are sure that everyone knows what their food stamp balance is in detail, I find this amazing. Trust me this is clearly not a population commonality. I'm a professional with a pretty decent income, albeit a single mom with a lot of expenses, and I am constantly losing track of my bank balance, and thank goodness for overdraft protection, which I have sometimes even exceeded. Sometimes they clear stuff, sometimes they don't. Fortunately, I just get a negative balance that my next paycheck deposit has debited against it. As opposed to having my grocery money taken for the next year because I'm a horrible thief.

Apparently the common thing of bank overdrafts is ok, but if you're poor and use food stamps and have an overdraft, you're a miserable cretin.

system dupe

Just throwing in my 2 cents. Nail everyone who abused it with felony fraud. I don't even care if they get jail time, if they want to act like that strip them of their right to vote and I'd say the country is better off. And fine walmart for everything we can.

I will say this does give us an instructive look at why the stores will be useless in any actual SHTF scenario.

I say throw the book at and cut off anyone that went over the limit anymore than 50% what they were supposed to get. There is no way that could be chalked up to a mistake. Also, pull walmart off the list of places that the EBT can be spent at.

reply to post by benrl


Just a thought here... Did they say they were removing the children's benefits? I am wondering if perhaps the kids will still get theirs?

TKDRL
cut off anyone that went over the limit anymore than 50% what they were supposed to get.

Well at least that would put some criteria on it so not everyone even in error is assumed to be criminal.

Also, pull walmart off the list of places that the EBT can be spent at.

If people where I am couldn't shop at walmart, they would starve to death. That's all there is. There were six grocery stores in the region when I moved here 13 years ago. When "Super Walmart" came, they all died, as did lots of other small businesses. SWM is what we've got now. And unlike 'bigger cities' especially coastal or metro, we don't have a bus system and things are a long way apart. So it's not even a matter of 'taking the bus to something else.' If there was something else. Just fyi. I realize a lot of the people who live in the bigger cities/coasts/metros don't realize that it's not like that everywhere.

reply to post by RedCairo


Oh yeah, I forgot walmarts devour every other store in the area, damnit. I am just glad both towns I lived in refused to let them set up shop. Talk about monopolies..... Stupid big chain stores......

Honestsly I think Walmart had no choice. What are they supposed to do? Tell old people and nursing mothers and kids they won't sell them food because of some government glitch?

Can you imagine the result that would have had for them nationwide, and I don't just mean lost money here but I mean in terms of how everyone would be going ON about how evil walmart is??

You know they would. They're already considered evil. "Starving old people, children, and poor people" would surely have made them evil-er with capitals.

So they were in a bad situation and they had to err on the side of hoping that the government would find a way to take care of it on their side, since the other alternative was making people starve.

As I noted in my post above, a lot of people in this country have NO place to shop EXCEPT walmart. They KNOW that.