Walmarts in small towns allowed EBT to be used without balance..UPDATES!!!!!

[Svnla]

Well we all know about the EBT glitch. WalMarts in two small towns of Louisiana allowed them to be used even the balances did not show up..ie..a person could buy hundreds or thousands dollars worth of goods even he/she only has a few bucks in the EBT card(s).

Words spread out..and within an hour or so (video/clip in link below):

From 7 to 9 p.m., people were loading up their carts, but when the cards began showing limits again around 9, one woman was detained because she rang up a bill of $700.00 and only had .49 on her card. She was held by police until corporate Walmart said they wouldn't press charges if she left the food.

Lynd says at 9 p.m., when the cards came back online and it was announced over the loud speaker, people just left their carts full of food in the aisles and left.

There was, however, a huge mess left behind. Pictures and videos obtained by KSLA News 12 show aisles packed with shoppers emptying the shelves in Springhill. Another video shows what appear to be at least dozens of overflowing carts left abandoned in the aisles at the Mansfield store, against the backdrop of emptied shelves in the meat department.

http://www.ksla.com/story/23679489/walmart-shelves-in-springhill-mansfield-cleared-in-ebt-glitch

People just have no shame and pride, not only they have the EBT cards, they tried to get even more freebies and just left a big mess when the gig was up.

I think WM should track down the scumbags that purchased goods that were way over their EBT limits and charge them with felony shoplifting.


Update 11/7/13

The Department of Children and Family Services announced Wednesday that it would seek to disqualify food stamp recipients through the state's administrative hearing process.

According to information gathered so far by DCFS infractions went beyond loading up shopping carts well over the limit, some shoppers were found to using old EBT cards and were not even eligible for benefits, while others attempted to purchase groceries at several stores.

"We've seen people who used a significant amount over what their benefits might have been when they had a zero balance on those cards," said Sonnier.

A lot of them folks are regretting now for what they did.

http://www.ksla.com/story/23906732/...n-to-cut-food-stamp-benefits-for-overspending

 

[Jeff7]

[Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd] says contrary to rumors, nobody was unruly or arrested and they were mainly there to help prevent shoplifting and theft.

Um...it sounds like that's exactly the reason that a lot of these people were there in the first place.

 

[Snock514]

Glad it wasn't this bad at the grocery store I work at D:

 

[NFS4]

Lynd says at 9 p.m., when the cards came back online and it was announced over the loud speaker, people just left their carts full of food in the aisles and left.

 

[sixone]

No good deed goes unpunished.

 

[child of wonder]

Despite being given free food via EBT, these fuckers were going to steal food on top of it by taking advantage of the glitch.

The food stamp program is a complete fail.

 

[RockinZ28]

Welcome to Supermarket Sweep!

Not the least bit surprising. These people get free shit on a regular basis. Of course they're going to be more than happy to take even more free shit given the opportunity.

 

[postmortemIA]

Welcome to Supermarket Sweep!

Not the least bit surprising. These people get free shit on a regular basis. Of course they're going to be more than happy to take even more free shit given the opportunity.

yes, my cat (and ferals too) would do the same

 

[PowerEngineer]

Somewhat reminiscent of the way that people here jump in to order gear whenever a website posts an obviously mistaken price. :whiste:

 

[lxskllr]

Somewhat reminiscent of the way that people here jump in to order gear whenever a website posts an obviously mistaken price. :whiste:

That's different!


i think


hmm...

 

[schmuckley]

Somewhat reminiscent of the way that people here jump in to order gear whenever a website posts an obviously mistaken price. :whiste:

Microcenter ad FTW!

 

[spacejamz]

Somewhat reminiscent of the way that people here jump in to order gear whenever a website posts an obviously mistaken price. :whiste:

I think that is okay because the government's money isn't being fraudentently used when a price mistake occurs

 

[lxskllr]

I think that is okay because the government's money isn't being fraudentently used when a price mistake occurs

Raises prices for consumers, and it's still theft in principle, if not law.

 

[Newbian]

Somewhat reminiscent of the way that people here jump in to order gear whenever a website posts an obviously mistaken price. :whiste:

Hey computers are serious business...

 

[Svnla]

Somewhat reminiscent of the way that people here jump in to order gear whenever a website posts an obviously mistaken price. :whiste:

Using EBT/government freebies =! own dime. At least that how I see it.

Plus these were not price mistakes, those people purchase goods way over their EBT limit/availability on purpose. See the quote in the OP about $700 goods were purchase (or tried to but the system was back online then) with less than $1 EBT card. And see how they all left a bunch of carts that were full of goods right in front of the check out lines when they knew they could not pull the stunt anymore.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Heh.

 

[sandorski]

Using EBT/government freebies =! own dime. At least that how I see it.

Plus these were not price mistakes, those people purchase goods way over their EBT limit/availability on purpose. See the quote in the OP about $700 goods were purchase (or tried to but the system was back online then) with less than $1 EBT card. And see how they all left a bunch of carts that were full of goods right in front of the check out lines when they knew they could not pull the stunt anymore.

His point stands. These people were exploiting an error. Where the error was is moot.

Given that the Store announced when the system was back in operation, it seems the Store Employees were in on it as well.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Using EBT/government freebies =! own dime. At least that how I see it.

Plus these were not price mistakes, those people purchase goods way over their EBT limit/availability. See the quote in the OP about $700 goods were purchase (or tried to) with less than $1 EBT card.

I agree it's not exactly the same thing, however what seems somewhat common here is that our zeal for getting the best deals possible can lead us into areas that are at least "gray" when we push hard for questionable price matching, pile on discounts that we know shouldn't work, and jump on obvious pricing errors which we hope the store will feel obligated to honor. The end result of the actions of "those people" and of we zealots is the same: the seller gets less money than they meant to for their products.

I suggest that it's something to bear in mind before we cast the first stone. ()

 

[Svnla]

His point stands. These people were exploiting an error. Where the error was is moot.

Given that the Store announced when the system was back in operation, it seems the Store Employees were in on it as well.

There was NO error from WMs. From the link:

"We did make the decision to continue to accept EBT cards (and purchases on WIC and SNAP) during the outage so that they could get food for their families."

WMs were being nice to help them because of the glitch from other source yet they tried to bite the hand that tried to help them ...hard.

Those WMs were trying to help those folks and they tried to steal, don't take my words for it because from the article:

Walmart shoppers Stan and Judy Garcia feel very differently. "That's plain theft, that's stealing that's all I got to say about it," said Garcia.

Now if it was because of WM system glitch or their errors (employee mistake/typo on ads/coupons/etc.), I can see his point but not here. Plus it was not their hard earned money so his point could not stand on that leg either. One more thing, they knew their EBT cards did not have that much money yet still tried to pile up as much as they could onto the shopping carts.

I agree it's not exactly the same thing, however what seems somewhat common here is that our zeal for getting the best deals possible can lead us into areas that are at least "gray" when we push hard for questionable price matching, pile on discounts that we know shouldn't work, and jump on obvious pricing errors which we hope the store will feel obligated to honor. The end result of the actions of "those people" and of we zealots is the same: the seller gets less money than they meant to for their products.

I suggest that it's something to bear in mind before we cast the first stone. ()

See my reply above to Sandoski, especially the last paragraph. I do want to save as much as possible when I shop but I don't do extreme couponing or any other weird/odd ways (typos or 1,000 of coupons print out to use at the same time because there was no "limit one coupon per customer"/etc.) to screw the stores.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

What difference does it make if it was a Walmart glitch or an EBT glitch, and who gives a shit how "hard earned" the money is? A self-made ATOT millionaire exploiting a NewEgg pricing error is still a fraudulent shitbag even if he did spend a fraction of the hard-earned money required to properly pay for an item. The funds these shoppers received via EBT were still rightfully theirs, even though they were acquired via the taxpayer.

 

[sandorski]

There was NO error from WMs. From the link:



WMs were being nice to help them because of the glitch yet they tried to bite the hand that tried to help them ...hard.

Those WMs were trying to help those folks and they tried to steal, don't take my words for it because from the article:

I'm not blaming Walmart, but suspect their Employees were aware and informed others. I mean, it could not have been a normal situation to have an influx of people piling carts full of stuff and paying in that way.

However, I could be wrong about the Employee collusion, but it had to be apparent that something wasn't right.

It definitely is Theft. I don't think anyone is denying that. What PowerEngineer(IMO) was pointing out is the similarity in behaviour between these people and Us in similar situations where a clear Error is in play. You may try to downplay Our actions when there's a Pricing error, but it is essentially the same thing. I wouldn't be too smug in condemning these people, although they certainly did something unacceptable. I think it should give us all a moment to pause to reflect on what we Do when confronted with a similar scenario.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Using EBT/government freebies =! own dime. At least that how I see it.

Plus these were not price mistakes, those people purchase goods way over their EBT limit/availability on purpose. See the quote in the OP about $700 goods were purchase (or tried to but the system was back online then) with less than $1 EBT card. And see how they all left a bunch of carts that were full of goods right in front of the check out lines when they knew they could not pull the stunt anymore.

It's like writing checks that you know will bounce.

 

[lxskllr]

On a pragmatic note, what do you suppose they thought would happen when the error was discovered? Using a card tells Walmart and the government exactly who you are. I expect someone's gonna want the money back.

 

[Svnla]

I'm not blaming Walmart, but suspect their Employees were aware and informed others. I mean, it could not have been a normal situation to have an influx of people piling carts full of stuff and paying in that way.

However, I could be wrong about the Employee collusion, but it had to be apparent that something wasn't right.

It definitely is Theft. I don't think anyone is denying that. What PowerEngineer(IMO) was pointing out is the similarity in behaviour between these people and Us in similar situations where a clear Error is in play. You may try to downplay Our actions when there's a Pricing error, but it is essentially the same thing. I wouldn't be too smug in condemning these people, although they certainly did something unacceptable. I think it should give us all a moment to pause to reflect on what we Do when confronted with a similar scenario.

I don't think WM employees from those stores were in this case together with the shoppers. Shoppers called their relatives and friends, just like gas price mistakes at the gas station.

I am not trying to be a smug at all. What I was saying is how they did what they did to screw WMs from WM goodwill and THEN just left all the goods (even meat and other goods could be spoiled) in the shopping carts and just be gone. Now WM will have to endure even more cost for labor to put all that goods back to the shelves and possible to throw a bunch of goods away. Guess what will happen next time if there is a glitch like this happens? WM and other stores will NOT let them buy anything until the system is back online. No more good will, no more break for anyone.

I guess I don't shop on the Net as much as you guys because I did not experience much (if any) about huge price discrepancies on NewEgg, Amazon, other stores on the internet.

 

[sandorski]

On a pragmatic note, what do you suppose they thought would happen when the error was discovered? Using a card tells Walmart and the government exactly who you are. I expect someone's gonna want the money back.

Indeed. Clearly they didn't think that far ahead.