EBT Glitch

The Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) system used to provide cards for food stamps went down on Saturday. What that meant was that the cards no longer had any limit on them.

Two Wal-Mart stores in Louisiana saw virtual stampedes as people cleaned out the shelves attempting to buy food with the no limit cards. Other grocery stores simply refused to accept the cards during the outage but Wal-Mart decided to let people use the cards anyway.

The result, according to Louisiana police, was total chaos as people attempted to check out seven and eight shopping carts filled with food.

When the store announced that the system was back up, and the limits back in place, people simply abandoned the full carts they hadn't checked out yet.

I'm not sure what Wal-Mart was thinking. Perhaps they were concerned that families would be left without food if they refused the cards. According to the latest reports the stores are going to be stuck with the bill for over purchases. Wal-Mart has indicated that it will not press charges against people who misused the cards.

These people should be ashamed of themselves. Where is their self-respect? To take advantage like that strikes me as disgusting behavior.

Food stamps and other financial aid is a privilege paid for with the hard earned dollars of other people. If you have no respect for yourselves, then at least try to have some for the people who contribute to help you buy food.

I'm sure the cards have some sort of code that would allow the identification of the people who basically stole from the Wal-Mart stores. Since Wal-Mart doesn't want to press charges, how about we make the food stamp allotment of people who took advantage of the glitch ZERO until the extra purchases are made up and Wal-Mart paid back? Why should the stores eat the loss?

Seriously, this type of behavior is totally unacceptable. How many of these people do you suppose will be in church on Sunday? Maybe they should actually READ the Ten Commandments (assuming they CAN read).