Wal-Mart customers in La. milk the EBT system
Government Shutdown may have played a roll in ransacked stores
By Terry Miller
Word quickly spread – faster than a school of catfish swimming down-stream in the Lacombe Bayou in the Louisiana towns of Springhill and Mansfield – that a food stamp glitch was giving recipients an early Christmas present of unlimited balances on their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, causing two local Wal-Marts to be completely ransacked last Saturday night according to numerous reports.
Beacon first heard about the story from a Tennessee native businessman Heath Strasser who works in the financial field in Pasadena. “I couldn’t believe it,” Strasser said with a giant gasp in his breath… “these guys were just loading up their carts with big-screen TV’s, electronics such as cell phones…anything they could get their hands on and they knew they were stealing but didn’t care.” “I can’t believe no one is talking about it,” Stasser declared unequivocally.
When a few alert Wal-Mart employees noticed that EBT cards weren’t showing any limits, they called the corporate office and were advised to allow shoppers to use the cards regardless.
“We did make the decision to continue to accept EBT cards during the outage so that they could get food for their families,” Wal-Mart representatives told local media.
However, food was the last very thing in most peoples’ carts Saturday according to eyewitnesses.
“They were grabbing everything off the shelves…they were looting… it was that crazy” said one eyewitness who refused to be identified.
Local police officers were called in for crowd control, however no one was arrested according to reports.
“It was definitely worse than Black Friday. It was worse than anything we had ever seen in this town.” There was no food left on any of the shelves, and no meat left. The grocery part of Wal-Mart was totally decimated said Springhill Police Chief Will Lyn.
