Freeloaders Pillage Retailers During EBT Meltdown

Breaking News / The Center for Western Journalism

While most Americans agree the government should provide temporary, limited assistance to those citizens unable to make ends meet, many feel the welfare system is hopelessly bloated and constantly misused. Through subsidies for housing, food, healthcare, and any number of other needs, a large segment of our population exists solely on taxpayer-funded handouts.

When one of those programs — the Electronic Benefits Transfer card, or food stamps — experienced technical issues over the weekend, it quickly became evident many of its recipients were perfectly comfortable fleecing the federal government for as much as they could. The problem has been blamed on a power outage at Xerox, which handles the system, and retailers in multiple states were affected.

Two Walmart locations in Louisiana found this out the hard way when management allowed moochers to use their food stamps despite the fact their machines were unable to display card limits. As one might expect, word quickly spread and the retailers were swamped with welfare kings and queens filling their carts with anything and everything.

Police were called in to handle the bedlam, leading local police chief Will Lynd to describe the confusion as “worse than any Black Friday” he has ever witnessed.

The two-hour free-for-all finally ended when the stores informed shoppers the system was back up. At that point, those who had not yet made it to the register abandoned their carts en masse, leaving the merchandise they planned to steal behind them and exiting as quickly as possible.

One woman had just amassed a bill of about $700 when the system was repaired. She was detained by authorities when the computer revealed she had less than 50 cents on her EBT card.

In the wake of the chaos, staff members spent nearly an entire day returning all of the merchandise to the newly bare shelves.

Read more at The Center for Western Journalism:

http://www.westernjournalism.com/freeloaders-pillage-retailers-ebt-meltdown/#EerWyEYbQZR7EWPp.99