Slammed for Using Food Stamps: Ga. Woman Seeks Apology

[Lace Neil Singer]

Sounds like the typical SC request... "I demand freebies, the manager burnt at the stake and his first born child!"

[Andara Bledin]

She didn't demand any freebies and declined the one she was offered and only wanted a personal apology from the actual culprit, retraining and demotion, specifically stating that she didn't want him to be fired.

That doesn't sound particularly SC to me.

^-.-^

[Lace Neil Singer]

Um, I wasn't saying she was; just adding in a facetious comment which should be obvious since I also mentioned burning at the stake. -.-

And she'll be waiting a long time for a personal apology; I personally would just chalk it up to experience, vote with my feet and get on with the rest of my life rather than nursing a grudge against a manager's ignorant comment and sending my blood pressure up.

[LadyBarbossa]

The way I understand it, $10 of stuff was not covered by food stamps, but she argued with them about it anyways and demanded to have the items. This would either equate to welfare fraud, if they somehow adjusted the items to be payable by EBT, or the store would have to eat the cost. Was the manager out of line? Maybe just a little. But the customer should have also had the good grace to just put the items back and forget about it. She was probably trying to purchase hot deli food or energy drinks or somesuch. Those are the only things I can think of that EBT/Access cards don't cover now.

[Andara Bledin]

The way I understand it, $10 of stuff was not covered by food stamps, but she argued with them about it anyways and demanded to have the items.

From several articles: "Nerger insisted all of her purchases were covered by her card, which was confirmed after half an hour of discussion with the manager and store employees." She demanded to have the items because she was legitimately entitled to have the items.

She stated that the manager's remark to her came after she said the equivalent of, "I told you so; we could have avoided all this if you guys had listened to me in the first place."

Article at RawStory

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[s_stabeler]

true, the managers said it was covered, but after half an hour of arguing about $10, they could have decided to eat the cost just to shut the woman up.

On the other hand, if they were covered, then yes, she is right to insist. However, if she made a comment about how ti could be avoided, i can sort of understand how the manager would be cross enough to make the remark. EBT cards are pretty tightly enforced, so they can't just take the customer's word for it that items are covered.

Oh, and Andara: until the items were paid for, she was not legally entitled to them at all. Before you pay for them, they remain the store's property. So long as it's not due to membership in a protected class, the store can absolutely refuse to sell any item it wants to to anybody. It's why people can be banned from stores.

Id kind of like to know what the items in question were, actually. Because if they were covered by the card, the woman is right, if they were not, the woman should have accepted they weren't covered ( but the manager still shouldn't have made the remark)

[Jester]

Not everyone on food stamps is a lazy piece of crap layabout cheating the government and the taxpayers. I know this from personal experience.

In the early eighties, after a several month battle with kidney disease, my father died. This left my mother a single mother of three children, with the inherent expense of raising, feeding, and sheltering said children, not to mention the medical and funerary expenses not covered by insurance. I have no idea what was and wasn't covered, as I was only 10 at the time, but even if Mom had no out of pocket expenditure for the hospital care, the funeral, or the burial, she still had a family of four to take care of.

Dad had always been the breadwinner. Mom stayed home and took care of the house and the children. This was not them being slaves to traditional roles, it was merely an arrangement they both agreed upon, and that worked. Until, of course, when Dad died. That left Mom, with little work experience, and none from the previous 25 or so years, to go back into the work force to provide for herself and her children. Making far less than Dad had made before he got sick, Mom needed--and was entitled to--help. And while it hurt her pride terribly to accept food stamps, she did what mothers have done throughout the ages; she did what was necessary to care for her children. She swallowed her pride and accepted the food stamps so she could feed us.

Eventually Mom got to the point where she no longer needed the food stamps, so she stopped getting them. But they had been absolutely necessary to the survival of my family.

And yes, I did say she was ENTITLED to them. Why? Because my father had been a productive member of society while his wife raised their children, and for decades he had paid into Social Security, the whole point of which is to care for people who have paid into it when they can't care for themselves. (Unless I missed something, that is the point of such programs, is it not?)

So yeah, what with the whole kidney angle, I definitely feel for and side with this woman. The manager did not know her situation, and should have kept his fat mouth shut.

Again, not everyone on food stamps is a lazy shiftless welfare cheat. And assuming they are is just idiotic.

I wonder tho; if she's embarrassed, then why is she splashing her story all over the internet?

She was embarrassed by the way the manager humiliated her in front of other people by making it out as if she was a lazy shit for having and relying upon food stamps to feed her family. She told her story to the local television station because the manager was completely in the wrong. I support her in this.

I read a followup article that stated the manager got transfered to another store and Korger offered her a $15 gift card.

She refused the card (more proof that she was not an SC out for a freebie), not because it wasn't enough, but because she said she will no longer shop at the food store involved. THAT is sticking to your principles, for those who missed it!

Id kind of like to know what the items in question were, actually. Because if they were covered by the card, the woman is right, if they were not, the woman should have accepted they weren't covered ( but the manager still shouldn't have made the remark)

According to one story I saw on this, the items in question were deli meat, i.e., ham, turkey, etc. Stuff you might buy to, oh, I dunno, feed a family. But apparently this manager didn't see it like that.

I don't have food stamps, and I have to imagine that such items would generally be covered under such programs.

[CaptainJaneway]

I think the only things that would not be covered are hot prepared foods. I know where I work our rotisserie chicken is not covered and they have to pay a tax on it.

[Dreamstalker]

I know that our hot prepared food isn't eligible (the cold chickens and other cold prep food are OK, don't know about sushi because I've never had anyone try). Household items may be eligible if a customer pays using the EBT Cash option, but I don't think many customers even know they can do that.

[Panacea]

Whenever I read stories like this, all I wish for from whoever incorrectly or unfairly judged another is that they experience sincere remorse for their actions. I definitely hope the manager learned his lesson and will become a better person as a result.

I wouldn't bet on it. People who assume everyone who accepts government help is a deadbeat fraud bottom feeder tend not to change their minds about this opinion, no matter what the evidence before him. If he really didn't think of food stamp recipients that way, he never would have said what he did.

I wonder tho; if she's embarrassed, then why is she splashing her story all over the internet? O_o

Because she went from being embarrassed to being pissed off, and rightfully so.

Even if she'd been the EW from hell, the manager is responsible for his own behavior and his own words. And, as it turns out, she wasn't. Which doesn't make it better for him.

Regarding the topic; I own a designer winter coat. When I bought it, it was the winter sales and it had been knocked down from £200 to £80.

I wish I were that lucky. I can never find anything nice on sale that's in my size. Evil Empryss finds great stuff at thrift stores, and her daughter is even better at finding great deals. But then again, they are both a lot ahm smaller than me (height as well as weight).

There's nothing wrong with dressing as well as you can afford, and if you have the patience and luck to do the shopping some folks can dress very well indeed. Nothing wrong with it at all.

I actually have a lot of nice boots that I bought in the sale or Fiance bought for me, so I expect I do look too affluent to be receiving benefits sometimes... but I only claim them cuz I need them to live. I'd be happy not to have to. Yes there are benefit cheats and scammers, but believe me, I'm not one of them. The giant TV I have was given to me by a mate of Fiance's when he bought a new one, and I certainly don't go on expensive holidays. My benefits simply help to pay my rent, food and bills.

The local conservative bloggers in my area often slam the poor as deadbeats, complaining that anyone who has a nice flat screen TV or a cell phone should not be on welfare.

To which I point out that the value of electronics drop through the floor after purchase. I have a flat screen that I paid a premium price for new, that I'd be lucky to get $50 for now because it does not have HDMI. Yet it looks and works as if it were brand new (it's 8 years old). You can buy a cell phone at Walmart for $30. You can buy a used iPhone for $100, or less if you buy an earlier model. So you really can't tell how much money a person makes these days by what they wear or their electronic toys, because people keep stuff for a year or two at best, a lot gets gently used and ends up on the resale market for a fraction of its original cost.

I know people who used to have good jobs and have the nice clothes that went with that job who are now on state aid. Knowing the circumstance I don't look at her any different for still wearing the nice clothes.

Quoted for Truth. It can happen to the best of us, especially in the past four years with the economy being in such lousy shape. Yet the asshats continue to judge and brag about how they lived on a shoestring until they were suddenly rich.

[Lace Neil Singer]

The local conservative bloggers in my area often slam the poor as deadbeats, complaining that anyone who has a nice flat screen TV or a cell phone should not be on welfare.

Hahahaha. I laugh at this. My mobile phone cost just £20 new, and I'm sure that if it were bought second hand, it would be even cheaper. As long as all you want of your phone is a cheapo job that just sends and receives calls and texts, you can get one for around £20 - £30 at any outlet. People ought to not judge.

Obviously, if said person has five brand new iphones, then that's another matter. But I am not alone in being a person who has no landline, and who has a mobile instead so that people can contact me and so I can call people.