Walmart Food Stamps Glitch: Shelves Emptied In Shopping Stampede [Watch]
Due to a temporary glitch in the EBT (Electric Benefits Transfer) system, two Walmart stores were stampeded by shoppers whose food stamps cards had had their spending limits lifted. One of the stores was in Springhill and the other in Mansfield, Louisiana.
Local police officers were called to the Walmart stores on Saturday to maintain order, as throngs of eager shoppers took full advantage of the technical glitch. The company which provides the Walmart food stamps via the EBT cards said the malfunction in the system was due to a power outage during some routine maintenance.
As a result of the glitch, customers in the food stamps program were given unlimited government-funded spending limits on their cards. Workers at the store were of course totally overwhelmed by the surge from people wanting to take full advantage of the situation.
When they contacted Walmart HQ they were told, amazingly, to keep serving and to keep the tills rolling. A representative from Walmart, Kayla Whaling spoke to reporters about the glitch:
“We did make the decision to continue to accept EBT cards during the outage so that they could get food for their families,” adding that Walmart were: “fully engaged and monitoring the situation and transactions during the outage.”
One shopper was clear in his view about the Walmart food stamps glitch on Saturday. Stan Garcia said that what he saw in the Walmart store amounted to: “plain theft. That’s stealing, that’s all I got to say about it.”
As you can see from the video in this article complete mayhem struck the Walmart stores due to the unlimited spending. Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd who was at one of the stores said: “I saw people drag out eight to ten grocery carts. One person hauled away more than $700 worth of groceries.”
What do you think about what happened with the Walmart food stamps incidents in Louisiana? If you were there and had an EBT card would you have helped empty the shelves yourself? Or do you think it was just daylight robbery? Sound off in the feed below.
