Posted on 01/09/2012 8:36:16 AM PST by shoff
I went to the local CVS pharmacy and after having to negotiate around someone parking in the fire zone (make-up emergency?) While I was waiting in line some scruffy guy was buying one candy bar with an EBT card and wanted the change after using twenty dollars in benefits from the card. The girl checked if this was OK from another cashier and they said it was. After I made my purchase I was in time to see the scruffy guy jump into the illegally parked car and head to the supermarket with I guess eighteen dollars to buy beer for himself and his friend. Can you really use EBT or food stamps this way? Can you make a minimum purchase and pocket the change?
My daughter is a licensed social worker. I will ask her when she gets home tonight. But the guy’s parking habits already spoke volumes about his entitlement mentality.
You can receive cash benefits on the same card as Food Stamps. EBT= Electronic BENEFITS card. Food Stamps=SNAP. There’s also TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), day care reimbursement, and also general welfare. It’s possible that child support may be on the card you saw depending on the state (but I’m not sure about that).
As far as I know, you cannot get anything from the SNAP portion of and EBT card, but you can from the other dispersals on the card. hope that helps.
To not allow this would be racist.
That surprises me because in this area they are offering to buy groceries for others at half price to get the cash. I don’t think they would do that if they can just buy a candy bar or something and get the change, they would come out a lot better that way than half price.
Don’t know for sure but I believe EBT cards are used with both food stamps and cash assistance. So if it is coming out of a person’s cash assistance funds, he should be able to take out cash just as you would with a debit card. For the cash there’d be no rule about what he can purchase.
And may I respectfully suggest that you write your representatives and perhaps run for office yourself, in order to do something about this sort of thing if it distresses you so much. (Did you actually follow him to confirm he was buying beer?)
Nice to know that my taxes pay for some skell to buy a candy bar with food stamps.
Speaking of CVS, the one near me only has muslims working there. All of the women wear head coverings and barely speak English. The employees certainly do not represent the residents in the town.
Anyone else notice this?
Well, Hell. I guess I’m a racist then. I have a policy that I follow when getting in line to check out at a grocery or other store. I never place myself in line behind someone I suspect will pay with an EBT card. Very often the EBT card will be almost depleted and rejected and a lengthy discussion concerning “what to do” will ensue. One day I became so aggravated that I simply pulled a twenty from my wallet and paid for the items in question. The woman was disgustingly effusive in thanking me and I just chose to ignore her.
We can't allow the humiliation of potheads at checkout stands here by refusing them cash change from EBT purchases.
It's another great feature in our enlightened Dope For Kids "medical" marijuana state.
But the story in the OP just makes me laugh. It is why our government is going down from a thousand cuts. This is just one of them.
Think of our governments budget as a bucket that needs to hold water. This sort of thing is like a pin-hole in the bucket. That's ok because water is being poured in at a pretty strong rate. Now add the other entitlements, the pork programs, the bail outs.
This is what our bucket now looks like, and why we are not long for this world:
You are right. There is cash assistance, although it’s not available to all EBT recipients. I only know this because I have an acquaintance who suffered many financial losses last year and had to sign up for SNAP temporarily.
I was educated on this just last Friday at my local Winco. Went to swipe my card, and noticed that the screen said ‘EBT Card’ and also ‘EBT Cash’. I looked at the checker and said EBT CASH? What is that? She said it’s for people on assistance to get cash so they can pay bills, etc., and then said but we can’t knowingly sell them alcohol or tobacco. I just looked at her disgustedly and said ‘What’s stopping them from going across the street to Fred Meyer and buying it? I work my ASS off and this just PISSES me off!’ She then just kind of looked at me knowingly and said ‘I’m not allowed to comment on it.’ I told her I knew that, but it didn’t mean I COULDN’T, and I let her know it. Must be hard to be a checker and not be able to say anything! Also makes want to just give up sometimes and sign up for everything I can, but I couldn’t live with myself if I did! AARRGGHH!!
Some states have a limit in the amount of cash back.
A person cannot get cash back from the Food Stamp benefits of the EBT card. And it won’t actually work, electronically, on the registers, so it just won’t happen.
BUT some people get some cash benefits (part of another program) which is also loaded onto the same card (so it contain food stamp benefits and cash benefits - from two different programs). So, someone can use their cash benefits any way they want to.
That’s what you see happening ... the guy got the cash benefits from the program that loaded that cash on that same card.
If something is rung up under Food Stamps, though - you’ll never be able to get even one penny back in cash ... no matter how hard you try.
A guy I know works at Albertson’s. He said they’ll load up on beef, turn right around and return it for cash and the store allows it.
Crap like this should bother ANYONE who works for a living and pays taxes.
It is a real problem with the lazy entitlement crowd, they are forcing people like me out of the system to Galts Gulch, to top it off I almost crashed my Truck this morning screaming at the Radio when a commercial came on from the IRS, begging people and encouraging people to sign up for their EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT and that they could get up to $5700 dollars even If They NEVER WORKED A DAY IN THEIR LIFE from Honest Hard Working Taxpayers who earn more than the poverty level. Goto IRS.Gov was at the end, now excuse me while I throw up.
In my State, there was a (what else is new) scandal of EBT cards being used at Indian Casinos & card rooms. Folks just have different ideas about the necessities of life.
A word of Doom&Gloom:> There will be an economic collapse within a few years. The governments are spending more money than they bring in & the debts incurred are so big they can't be paid back. Raising Taxes will not solve the problem. There are NOT enough jobs right now. + A lot of people don't want to work or can't really work.
"Earned income" sounds to me like they need to have worked a day in their life. Are you sure you heard correctly?
I'd sooner take a wire brush to my a$$ than accomodate these leeches. They are nothing more than slugs leeching off the real Americans in this country, the ones that actually pay taxes.
If it were me, I'd look at the predicament, smile, and if asked about helping, I'd say "I already have; the government stole my money to give you what you've wasted already and now need more of".....
You are right. TANF funds are on those cards. But I doubt he’s on cash assistance if he was a bum. You have to have minor children. What she did was wrong.
It’s illegal.
The Papa Murphy’s pizza store in our small town has a “EBT cards accepted” sign in its window.
I have seen this exact thing done at Walgreen’s. The person bought a candy bar (under $1) and got the change for $20. With the food stamps card.
Welcome to the California Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) Client Website
The locations where you can use your EBT card to withdraw cash may have changed. Please check the list of locations on this website to see where you can withdraw cash benefits in your area. You can no longer get your cash benefits at ATMs and point of sale devices in liquor stores that don’t accept your CalFresh benefits. You also can’t get your cash benefits at casinos, poker rooms, card rooms, adult entertainment businesses, bail bonds, night clubs/saloons/taverns, bingo halls, race tracks, gun/ammunition stores, cruise ships, psychic readers, smoking shops, cannabis shops, tattoo/piercing shops, and spa/massage salons.
This website is a resource for California EBT cardholders to check individual account balances, view transaction history detail, check claim status, and locate retailers and automated teller machines (ATMs) that accept the EBT card. The Golden State Advantage card is California’s EBT card. It is similar to a bank debit card that provides a way for you to spend your food and/or cash benefits when your monthly benefits are deposited into your EBT account. You can use your EBT card at any store or ATM that displays the Quest® mark throughout California and across the country.
You must have a User ID and password to log into your account.
Cardholders are required to have a User ID and password to view their:
•Account Balance
•Transaction History
•Claim Status
Linky:
https://www.ebt.ca.gov/caebtclient/reciplogin_client.jsp
I will be looking forward to her answer. This is in NY by the way. NY where they want to remove the requirement that you get fingerprinted for EBT.
I would guess the benefits portion is what he used. Having the benefit of beer and butts on the taxpayer dime.
Don’t be so hard on them. They earned that income tax credit by selling their vote to the Democrats and Rinos. There was recently a drop in crime in Florida that had law enforcement baffled until they noticed classes on how to get the earned income tax credit with fake or stolen SS numbers. The criminals were taking in so much; that real crime didn’t pay as well.
I live in California, and I’ve heard radio ads begging people to go on food stamps! The ad goes something like this:
Announcer: You may qualify for food stamps!
Female voice: But I have a job!
Announcer: You still may qualify!
Female voice: But I have a bank account!
Announcer: You still may qualify!
Female voice: But I have a house!
Announcer: You still may qualify!
Female voice: But I have a car!
Announcer: You still may qualify!
Female voice: But I’m Oprah Winfrey!
Announcer: You still may qualify!
Okay, I’m kidding about that last one. But obviously, they are trying to persuade people to go on food stamps, people with jobs, houses, cars and bank accounts; people who never even thought of going on food stamps until they heard that ad!
Every time I hear it, my blood just boils.
In New Hampshire, of the 883 stores that take food stamp cards, only 18 were disqualified from the program since 2006. The story was similar in Massachusetts, where just 228 of the 4,320 stores authorized to accept food stamps were disqualified. By 2009, 90 of those Massachusetts retailers were back on the list of authorized food stamp merchants and had collectively racked up more than $7 million in food stamp redemptions in that one year alone, records obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the $50 billion program, show.
"The biggest problem we have here in Massachusetts is that we can't prosecute because there is no state statute," said one Bay State investigator who has assisted federal agents in retailer investigations. "We couldn't even bring a case against them."
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2012/01/the_politics_of_food_stamps.shtml
Good question - I’m in the state of Washington which is run by democrats and is a fiscal, social, business, moral, criminal, stinking disaster. But I repeat myself :>)
Is it uphill both ways when you walk barefoot to and from work in waist deep snow?
You’ve got too much of a chip to be studying anything practical. Nobody owes you a thing. Seriously.
Get over yourself and get to work.
Is it uphill both ways when you walk barefoot to and from work in waist deep snow?
You’ve got too much of a chip to be studying anything practical. Nobody owes you a thing. Seriously.
Get over yourself and get to work.
Welcome to FR !
[better slip into those Nomex undies]
I won’t call you scum.... But you are a leech....
If you are working two jobs 50 to 60 hours a week and still need to be on food stamps .....you are doing something wrong....or have too many liabilities (debt)
I’d rather eat rice and beans every day of the week than take a nickel out of a hard working American pocket....By force...
I would take Charity because it is something different....it teaches humbleness not entitlement...
OR
I am offended very personally.
Either way, good luck in grad school and best wishes to your cousin for his circumstances to improve.
And you just happened to sign up today to let us all know how offended you are? What a coincidence.
It is regrettable that gradgirl14 was so quickly zapped. I read her comments to me late last night and was going to respond to her this morning. I will not now be able to explain my position to her even though I believe her lot in life is sealed already.
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