A glitch in the system temporarily removed the limits on EBT cards in Louisiana, which sparked a run on Walmart. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57607332/ebt-benefit-card-glitch-sparks-walmart-shopping-sprees-in-louisiana/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-576 ... louisiana/</a> When the system was up and running again, many shoppers just abandoned the carts full of food they had hoped to purchase: Focus: Discuss this story. Alt-focus: Have you ever taken advantage of an oversight?
They should have put everything back. You have no idea how infuriated I am they just left it there. Some poor jerk making $7.50 an hour, already stretched thin by their corporate overlord, now has to put away several hundred pounds of products before their shift ends and probably reprimanded and yelled at for not getting the extra work done plus their usual routine. Funny, I just deleted someone from my Facebook for spouting anti-foodstamp bullshit. It hurt to try to explain things to this piece of shit. I know this incident is no way indicative of food assistance users, but goddamn people. Have some fucking decency. It's not just these folks, it is everyone. My soul hurts. The news sent me over the edge today. Alt-focus: Have you ever taken advantage of an oversight? Every time I hook up.
To hit on the Alt focus: I definitely got over on my bank a few years back. I had taken in a bunch of rolled up change to turn into bills, about $90 or so, and never counted the money in the bank just because I figured the guy was paying attention since the place wasn't really all that busy. I put that envelope in my nightstand to save for a rainy day and really just forgot about it. Cue a month and change later and we had just moved from a piece of shit house to a small apartment about 2 miles down the road and moving expenses start to add up. I remember that the envelope is in the dresser and decide to break it out to help ease the pain of moving. Suddenly $90 in loose change comes out to $980 in cash. I had to count it several times before it sank in. That was rent plus groceries when the wife and I were kind of hurting. I thought back on the incident and realized that I had never given my name to the teller nor swiped a card, so they had no electronic record of me even being there at all. They could have pulled surveillance tapes from the parking lot and ran my plates and all that, but nothing had been said about it to this point so I figured I was in the clear. Had I noticed the day it happened, I would have taken it back. Since it happened damn near two months in the past though? Nope. I considered it karma paying me back, along with my rent.
Also, I wonder how much food had to be thrown away. I would imagine that there were things like meats, dairy, and frozen items that sat in those carts. Depending on how long it took them to put it all back, it seems like some of that shit probably had to get tossed out because it sat out of the cooler too long, or thawed out/melted.
I half would have expected to hear that they demanded to be checked out anyway, or for people who aren't there to say that they deserve extra, too. The fact that they left the carts is a pretty good sign they knew what they were doing was wrong. This isn't the same as a bank error or a gas station screwing up the price on the pump, because those people are trying to make money off of you. Taking advantage of a charity program that is trying to help you makes you scum.
How did the word spread so quickly that there was a glitch? Can you imagine what it must have been like for a regular shopper there who just happened to be stopping by for toilet paper and maybe some milk for the morning? I was pretty pissed off reading the article when I posted it originally in the drunk thread. It competely defeats the purpose of the system in place to help them. I view it the same as looting. And its not that I care so deeply for wal mart either. I don't. I guess my point is that there is not a whole lot in place that prevents people from becoming animals at the drop of a hat.
I've taken advantage of a number of price errors from major stores (e.g. Amazon, Best Buy). Either straight price errors, or coupons/discounts that weren't intended to be stacked with other deals, and as a result, a large number of the expensive electronics I own were obtained on a deep discount. However, I view this as a pretty different situation - they aren't taking advantage of a store's error, they're abusing a program designed to help them, simply because the program suddenly didn't force them to not abuse it. The fact that they abandoned the carts makes it even worse - "oh, you mean I can't abuse my charity program? Well then fuck you, I'm leaving." Assholes.
I'm amused that you all seem to think that people who are stealing would have had the good grace to return the food they were stealing after they got caught.
They were actually going to prosecute a person who had over $700 worth of groceries in the cart when she had an actual balance of 49 cents on the card. They said if she left the food, she wouldn't get arrested.
Pigs. Look at that mess in the photo. Some of you may not have seen the photos of them pushing one cart and dragging a second one behind them. It blows my mind that so many in-the-way people think that they're entitled to free shit. Their kids eat Pop Tarts and drink Tang while they fiddle around on $400 cell phones. Atrocious.
You mean people who already abuse a system with no checks and balances abuse it even more when it tips in their favor? Stop the presses. I hate the idea of assistance programs. Unless you're physically or mentally handicapped, there's no excuse and this is exhibit A as to why. No one looks at is as help, they look at it as "Hey free stuff!" Shit if I was a soulless, shameless leech Id feel the same way. No taxes and no accountability because of politics? Not a bad deal for them, but fuck everyone else though apparently.
Down in SC when I worked there I could buy EBT cards for 50 cents on the dollar. I had no issues doing it, I am not to proud or ashamed to be seen using an EBT card. That and a hundred bucks worth of food for 50 is a damn good deal. The people who sold them had little to no interest in actually using them for food, they all just wanted cash for them, the vast majority all drove better cars and every damn one of them had an IPhone. All without working. Seems fair.
I feel about this way. I am a serious thrift shopper and I'm the 20 something in Salvation Army going through racks of clothes and in the grocery store with 10 coupons, buying multiples of sale+coupon items to save myself as much money as possible. When the commissary puts out military commissary coupons for items I buy regularly, you bet your ass I have 25 of them in my purse. But this? Eh. This is serious abuse. I am all for getting a good deal but this is taking advantage of a system designed to help out folks who are struggling and is unethical and a little sad. All that wasted shit in the carts abandoned make it so much worse. Like, okay, I can't have it, and neither can you! I am all for minimal assistance programs that get you through the rough times, but this instance shows how much of a gamed and overblown system it has become. Though, offtopic, Spoiler as much as the unethical-ness of people gaming the system and being wasteful makes people mad, there is WAYWAYWAY more money wasted in the military and that's the first thing to look at if you want to make some serious fixes to the hemorrhaging cash situation.
Based on the most reputable available study, the average income of people convicted of welfare fraud, including all public assistance, is $13,356. Perhaps this influences their decisionmaking.
I think it would be more helpful to know how much they are getting through that assistance program. If they are getting assistance every week or twice a month like clockwork, what good is it really to be scamming the system? At some point it is just greed far and beyond your needs. And the carts we see in the pictures are not a couple of splurges on items they want but can't afford, they are more than even a large family would need for a month.