Posted on 10/15/2013 4:46:22 PM PDT by BBell
Police in two north Louisiana cities won't investigate fraudulent food stamp purchases made at local Wal-Marts this weekend unless asked by the retailer, law enforcement representatives said Tuesday.
But it is unclear whether the world's largest retailer would ask local police to intervene, after a company representative said Wal-Mart believed it made the right decision this weekend and would keep customers' best interests at heart in the issue going forward.
The fraudulent purchases were made at the Springhill and Mansfield locations during a massive system-wide outage on Saturday (Oct. 12). Wal-Mart spokeswoman Kayla Whaling said the retailer instructed cashiers at the two locations to continue sales to Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, Card holders in spite of the outage.
Some benefits recipients spent well in excess of their balances, but investigations into the "isolated incidents" at the two Louisiana locations have not yet been initiated.
"Wal-Mart has not contacted our office at all," said Gary Hobbs, assistant chief of police for the city of Mansfield in DeSoto Parish. He said police would be very willing to investigate the matter if Wal-Mart files a complaint and hands over any pertinent evidence.
Xerox, a contractor in charge of EBT Cards, has an emergency backup procedure in place that allows retailers to call Xerox and authorize up to $50 in purchases per recipient during such outages
The Wal-Mart locations in Springhill and Mansfield did not act in accordance with the procedure. Going forward, it's up to the retailer to decide whether to eat the costs of fraudulent purchases or instruct local police to investigate the improper EBT charge
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
The people were all thieves. Stop blaming Walmart.
Five minutes after the mob showed up, they should have announced over the loudspeaker, as well as posted notices, that the glitch had been fixed. That would have flushed out the deadbeats.
This decision likely avoided a riot. If those gibsmedats are like the ones around here, how dare anybody question that there are no limits!
Looking at the video and the demographics...you’re likely quite right.
Sue Obama. Its Obama’s fault anyway!
Hey, if walmart doesn’t want to prosecute, their choice. Next time I go............ Ooops. I forgot. I don’t go there any more after the ceo donated to obies campaign. So, if someone goes, don’t bother to pay for your stuff since it’s apparently free for the taking. If they try to make you pay...........discrimination suit to follow.
Can I ask a stupid question?
Once the system was back up and running, don’t all these people have the equivalent of an overdrawn bank account? And a shortage which would need to be repaid???
Or, if you charge on a credit card, and you go over your credit limit in error, the card issuer will expect you to pay the overage before new charges are allowed.
Don’t these concepts exist in the world of EBT cards????
We know who the people are and the amounts they charged. We know by how much they went over their EBT limits. Why is this even an issue of who is going to eat a loss and all that????
No, because then they would have been sued by some liberal lawyers.
The least WalMart should do is to post images of these freeloaders on the web and let them be known for their shopping prowess.
It should be out and out fraud. The people that did this know what their limit is, and knew they were stealing.
If my regular debit card allows me to spend more than I have in my account I am sure I will be held responsible for what I spent.
Exactly my point. If somehow your debit card allowed you to charge over the balance in your account in error, the bank would catch it and you would be expected to repay. The way this issue is being discussed, it sounds like these concepts don’t exist the the EBT world. I’m really floored that talk of Wal-Mart and others have to eat a loss on this.
Nah, why turn them into heroes?
If I was Walmart big shot - no more EBT cars accepted.
No more problems.
(yes, I do understand that most of Walmart’s money comes out of tax payers pockets but it’s nice to dream)
I will NEVER go to Walmart again if they don't make this right by insisting these looters be prosecuted. They have set a precedent here.
No, somebody at the Cash Office learned of the glitch and spread the word around. Timestamps on ‘purchases’ will prove this, but Walmart will bury this as they want no intimidation in their core customer base - EBTers.
Some questions. Did these people stand in checkout lines and get told the cards were ‘unlimited’? Was the announcement made over the PA or did they just start looting?
As for WalMart- when is ANY foodstamp card ‘unlimited’? If you KNOW the system is broken and its telling you there is no limit, shouldn’t you figure its WRONG and not honor them at all?
Lets face it- if you want the government money, you have to deal with the governments slaves. Make’em mad and you have a riot.
I worked at a Walmart here in La. for almost three years. If they said they thought the people would do the right thing they are lying. I knew I had to quit Walmart because I was getting to hate the customers.
my guess is they used their obamaphones, called everyone they knew an grabbed all the neighbors
The two WalMarts in Louisiana decided to give away and write off the goods to avoid a riot and loss of more expensive inventory. This was with corporate consent. They did not have an expectation that SNAP would reimburse them the expense.In a different kind of scenario it is not uncommon that an individual has to reimburse SNAP or TANF any excess amount of benefit that was given to them. This can occur as a result of an error in the benefit calculation or other reasons and doesn't have to be a criminal matter. Often the benefit amount in subsequent months is withheld until the account "catches up" or is reconciled.
But in this case WMT let the transactions go through although there were red flags all over and they had even been apprised of the situation at Xerox.. I believe WMT is on the hook for this but they knew this at the time they made the decision to proceed.
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