Wal-Mart caves to SCs, allows them to get cartloads of "free"groceries

[smileyeagle1021]

Maybe even Wal-Mart can try to pursue them for theft or something related (???)

Their best bet would probably be to try to charge them with fraud... they misrepresented how much money was on their cards, which is about as text book as you can get.

[Nyoibo]

A couple of coworkers and I got into a similar discussion yesterday at work about welfare leeches and we pretty much agree with that statement: you should do something, even if it's picking up trash on the side of the road, in order to earn your benefits.

I have an addendum to that however, when I was on Newstart (welfare payment in Aus) they had what was known as work for the dole, you had to work to get your payment, the problem I had with this is that although the payment was $450 a fortnight, I was expected to work for 30 hours a week to get it, the fact that there is obviously work out there, I was doing it, but they refuse to pay a decent wage for it so they make a deal with the government to get people forced to do the work is bullshit.

Just going to throw some numbers out there, I was working for what equated to around $7.50 an hour, the legal minimum wage is $16.67, there's no excuse to make someone do what would be a legitimate job for benefits except corporate greed.

[Panacea]

So far, it's just been politicians *calling for* exactly that. Part of the article mentions that the DCFS is attempting to obtain permission to go after the customers in some way, as the DCFS itself is not a law enforcement agency; I think that all they can really do directly is to kick people out of the program.

Yeah, DCFS will have to deal with the civil issue of misuing the cards. The Attorney General would have to take care of the criminal end. And they should.

As has been noted already in this thread, Wal-Mart did violate its own policy regarding the purchase limits, so my guess would be that getting their money back is unlikely. The State did not actually fork over any taxpayer money for the transactions in question, according to the article.

And Wal mart isn't going to have much luck with civil suits or criminal actions. Courts are very unsympathetic to people who have policies in place to prevent fraud and abuse, then willfully ignore them.

Just going to throw some numbers out there, I was working for what equated to around $7.50 an hour, the legal minimum wage is $16.67, there's no excuse to make someone do what would be a legitimate job for benefits except corporate greed.

That's something a lot of people who bitch about welfare don't bother to think about. They ignore the fact that MOST people who are on welfare, SNAP, the dole, public assistance of any sort are WORKING PEOPLE. Very few don't work at all.

Yet the majority of these people getting assistance WOULDN'T EVEN NEED the dole if their employers offered them a living wage!

So, instead the taxpayer fills in the gap. This is horrendous. My tax dollars should not be going to what people should be able to buy on their own with their hard earned wages. My tax dollars should not be a subsidy for McDonalds to pad their profits by cheating their workers.

It's time for the government to raise the minimum wage, since the employers won't. It won't kill businesses. It will help them by growing the economy.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Couldn't agree more. I get tax credits to fill the gap between minimum wage and a living wage. This is ridiculous, and I'd love to come off the benefit, but I can't. If the government actually allowed me to keep more of my paycheck instead of savagely taxing the working classes to death just cuz unlike giant corporations they don't have the resources to dodge their tax, then I wouldn't have to be on benefits. Same goes for a pay hike so that paychecks actually match a living wage.

[Ginger Tea]

What Nyobio is describing is or has come to the UK, I think it's starting off with the long term unemployed, but working for benefits is wrong if you are doing a job, you should be paid a wage and that wage had better match or beat the minimum legal one.

[EricKei]

It's time for the government to raise the minimum wage, since the employers won't. It won't kill businesses. It will help them by growing the economy.

Problem is, the people representing the big businesses scream and hem and haw any time a minimum wags increase is even mentioned off hand, saying that it will indeed obliterate the economy with no chance of recovery. Guess what entities effectively control the bulk of our government...Go on, guess

As for the (related) "waiter wage" -- back when I lived in New Orleans (which has an inordinately huge number of restaurants), any time talk of raising the local minimum and/or the waiter wage came up, it got thoroughly squished into a fine paste, pissed on, buried, later dug up, and recycled as firelighters tut de suite. Local owners simply will not allow it to happen, traditionally using the excuse that they would "have no choice whatsoever" other than to either shut their places down en masse (unthinkable and it would likely be catastrophic to for the economy there), or fire half or more of their employees in order to pay for a $1 an hour blanket raise.

Generally speaking, politicians never bring up those sorts of things unless they're in the process of running for office in an area with a huge number of voters who work at such jobs. Once they're in office, they go back to business as usual ("Raise the MW? I never promised you guys any raises.")

edit: I would also like to offer my sympathies to anyone working in grocery and c-stores here in the US, as this is the month where something like 30% of all SNAP recipients will see their benefits cut by around $15 per person, as part of a governmental money saving measure of some kind.

[eltf177]

http://consumerist.com/2013/11/14/lo...food-benefits/

Looks like these people are going to get exactly what they deserve for being so greedy...

[smileyeagle1021]

Looks like these people are going to get exactly what they deserve for being so greedy...

Almost, I'd rather that they had no time limit on how long they will be banned and have it be strictly on how long it would take their benefits to pay back how much they spent with interest.

I kind of hope though that they aren't going after every person who went over... I can understand someone when finding out that there was no balance or limit not knowing exactly how much they had but had a good idea and going over a reasonable amount (eg person thought that they had $100 available on their card, spent $95, and found out later that they only had $90).

[s_stabeler]

they AREN'T going after everybody. I'm pretty sure that someone who went $5 over, they won't strip benefits from.

[Aethian]

I remember one lady who had to use the system for a short time kept tight register details on how much she had. This was when the being it's could accumulate so one could hit the really good sales. I wonder how many who shopped got pressured into going back by family.

[Dreamstalker]

In my state, benefits can roll over from month to month, but do expire fully after one year (so if my benefits started on 10/7/13, whatever balance is on the card by 10/6/14 must be used in full or it's gone).

It's not that uncommon to see a huge EBT order with a remaining balance due every so often (probably a balance about to expire and they want to use it up) or a very high ending card balance--I think the highest I've personally seen was in the area of $2500.

[EricKei]

http://consumerist.com/2013/11/14/lo...food-benefits/

Looks like these people are going to get exactly what they deserve for being so greedy...

Speaking of which -- http://www.wwltv.com/news/DCFS-disqu...246886431.html

[Rapscallion]

Hrm, so effectively fraud is punished by apparent starvation? I'm hardly against harsher sentences, but doesn't sit well. Surely jail time or community service would have been more appropriate?

Rapscallion

[Kheldarson]

Hrm, so effectively fraud is punished by apparent starvation? I'm hardly against harsher sentences, but doesn't sit well. Surely jail time or community service would have been more appropriate?

Rapscallion

Well, all of the food help resources (WIC, food stamps) have you sign a contract on how you'll use it. And fraud of any type is generally under "Do not do under any circumstance or lose it".

[Aethian]

Hrm, so effectively fraud is punished by apparent starvation? I'm hardly against harsher sentences, but doesn't sit well. Surely jail time or community service would have been more appropriate? Rapscallion

Additionally, those convicted of unauthorized use of SNAP benefits face penalties ranging from $5,000 and/or six months in prison to one million dollars and/or imprisonment of up to ten years.

Got your idea handled there. Several of these people knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't play by the rules and now they can't play at all. No ones fault but their own.