EBT has been shut down

[Chili]

LOL...and anger the peasants some more? Right...

The EBTs come next pay cycle will be like nothing happened.

Unfortunately, I know they wouldn't do it.. And if they did, the "entitled" would freak the fuck out even though they knew full well what they were doing at the time.

[Denny]

What they need to do is to count the sum each person purchased towards their future benefits.. Like running negative in a bank account.

Like many other social programs, it is a way of getting money into the economy. We need it as bad as the military industrial complex. Federal spending (overspending) is where it's at!!!

[Forever_frost]

How come not much of this EBT stuff was in the news anywhere?

Why would it be? Several stations carried it locally but national news? Nah, we have to worry about what's going on on the Jersey Shore

[GhostTX]

Why would it be? Several stations carried it locally but national news? Nah, we have to worry about what's going on on the Jersey Shore

No, MSM is too busy blaming 'pubs for the shut down and the impending doom of the (non)default!

[kingjason]

http://gma.yahoo.com/walmart-shelves-emptied-food-stamp-shopping-spree-171042474--abc-news-topstories.html

Louisiana officials are trying to decide what to do about a massive shopping spree by families on food stamps when a power outage lifted the caps on their spending cards.

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.

"I saw people drag out eight to ten grocery carts," he said.

Lynd said customers were "not unruly." There were no fights or arrests made, but the scene was still chaotic, he said.

"It was definitely worse than Black Friday. It was worse than anything we had ever seen in this town," Lynd said of Springhill, which is near the border with Arkansas. "There was no food left on any of the shelves, and no meat left. The grocery part of Walmart was totally decimated."

He said one customer made about $700 in food purchases.

Lynd said that around 9 p.m. CT on Saturday, a Walmart employee made an announcement on the intercom saying that the computer system had been restored and card limits had returned. At that time, customers left shopping carts full of food in store aisles.

"At that point in time, they knew the jig was up and they couldn't purchase what they wanted to," Lynd said.

In the Walmart store in Mansfield, about 80 miles south of Springhill, staff temporarily closed the store to new customers to prevent a fire hazard with the existing number of shoppers.

Mansfield's chief of police Gary Hobbs said no arrests were made and there were no incidents besides customers "pushing and shoving." Hobbs said there were reports that customers were checking out with six to eight shopping carts, then returning later in the day to purchase more.

Unlike Walmart, other grocery stores in town told customers they would not accept EBT cards until the card limits were evident again, Hobbs said.

The Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program, said the issue was not related to the government shutdown.

The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services' spokesman Trey Williams said the agency is meeting today to discuss how to handle the issue.

The shopping frenzy was triggered when the Electronic Benefits Transfer system went down because a back-up generator failed at 11 a.m. EST Saturday during a regularly-scheduled test, according to Xerox, a vendor for the EBT system and based in Norwalk, Conn.

The outage allowed recipients to spend unlimited amounts of money because the spending limit was removed for their EBT cards.

The EBT system was affected in 17 states, where individuals and households access programs like Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and other programs.

"The loss of power triggered a preventative shutdown of the EBT system to protect its overall integrity," according to a statement from Xerox spokesman Kevin Lightfoot. "While the system was restored within 22 minutes, the network experienced connectivity issues until our technical staff were able to re-establish full access just before 10 p.m. EST."

Lynd said the Springhill Walmart store manager called police on Saturday morning to ask for advice over crowd control. When he arrived, Lynd told the Walmart staff that they had the right to refuse service if they chose to, but Walmart's corporate office advised the store to allow customers to purchase what they wanted with the cards.

A spokeswoman for Walmart, Kayla Whaling, said the frenzied shopping in Louisiana "was isolated and is not representative of the what our stores experienced across the country."

Xerox said that it continues to "investigate the cause of the issue so we can take steps to ensure a similar interruption does not re-occur."

A spokeswoman for Xerox, Jennifer Wasmer, said, "If there is an EBT system outage, there is an agreed and documented process for retailers to follow. The process includes a 'per cardholder, per day' spending limit that is set at a state level."

In Louisiana, the limit is $50 per cardholder per day, she said.

"The emergency process allows retailers to meet the critical food needs of cardholders even if the system is temporarily down," she said.

When asked about reports that Walmart customers were spending hundreds of dollars more than their account limits, Wasmer said ABC News would have to speak to retailers.

Walmart did not respond to a question about whether its Louisiana stores recognized a $50 limit.

[Gaber]

This just shows you how pathetic our society really is. Jesus.

[jw33]

Word on the street is this "power outage" was at a data center in Dallas.

[line-em-up]

Word on the street is this "power outage" was at a data center in Dallas.

Sorry about that. I forgot to load the backup tapes.

[BP]

Well if they know what each person spent then wait however many days it takes to "pay back" what they took before their cards work again. Seems pretty simple. I know it's not what will happen because we can't punish poor and stupid for being themselves but it's what should happen.

Then if I were whatever government agency controls the freebies I'd hold WalMart responsible for the overages.

The sad thing is that this is one program that is ran by a private company, I'm sure the spin will be that the government can do it better.

[ceyko]

I do blame walmart a little, but I also feel like those who abused their cards should have them shutdown permanently.

[ELVIS]

savages.

god bless.

[mstng86]

How I'm gonna get my steaks?!

Lol, at the canned cannibals!

...and lobster, and prime rib, and...

You guys aren't exaggerating. I see it every weekend an they think it's a big joke.

[jw33]

nsfw

[Forever_frost]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/15/guess-whos-footing-the-bill-for-that-walmart-food-stamp-fiasco/

Walmart will be on the hook for the glitch-prompted shopping spree that nearly wiped out stores in Louisiana after the Electronic Benefit Transfer system temporarily removed spending limits on food stamp recipients’ cards.

The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, which oversees the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, said Walmart will have to foot the bill for store losses in Springhill and Mansfield, La., during a food shopping frenzy.

Guess Whos Footing the Bill for That Walmart Food Stamp Fiasco
Image source: The Daily Mail
No card is limitless, DCFS spokesman Trey Willims told KSLA-TV. Usually when outages occur, he said, it’s the store’s responsibility to take action, include calling a number to verify customers’ card limits.

But some retailers chose not to do that Saturday night.

“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 $50,” he said.


The no-limits glitch occurred as the EBT system failed Saturday in several states during a routine backup test. Walmart employees knew immediately that something was wrong, but were advised by the corporate office to allow shoppers to make their purchases. Some stores, however, chose to close until the situation had been resolved.

The system was back on online by Saturday night, but not before the Springhill Walmart was nearly wiped out.

“It was definitely worse than Black Friday. It was worse than anything we had ever seen in this town. There was no food left on any of the shelves, and no meat left. The grocery part of Walmart was totally decimated,” Springhill Police Chief Will Lyn told ABC News.

Does Walmart have any recourse? It may.

According to KSLA, Louisiana can track welfare fraud with GPS based software. Therefore, DCFS knows who bought what, and how much was supposedly “spent.”

Law enforcement officials can obtain that information and can pass it along should stores request it, KSLA reported.

Guess Whos Footing the Bill for That Walmart Food Stamp Fiasco
Image via thefilmfatale/Instagram.
But it’s also possible Walmart could choose to eat the loss.

“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.

[ceyko]

Just saw that on FB too. 2 possible things will come of this..

1. This is fairly certain - walmart won't be so liberal with trying to spend out tax money.
2. This is a maybe, they'll try to obtain funds from those people. I consider this futile though, since they won't pay and their credit is probably crap anyway if it is sent to collections. So, they'll probably just eat it.