Walmart shoppers cleared shelves and filled shopping carts to overflow after a software snafu removed spending limits from their EBT cards.
Police were called to help deluged clerks at stores in Springhill and Mansfield in northern Louisiana Saturday night.
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There were no injuries or arrests after the feeding frenzy caused by a power outage during a routine maintenance test by Xerox of their government-funded debit cards.
Store managers called Walmart headquarters for guidance and were told to keep ringing up customers, KSLA-TV reported.
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“We did make the decision to contine to accept EBT cards during the outage so that they could get food for their families,” said Walmart spokeswoman Kayla Whaling.
The stores recorded all transactions and managers were investigating how to proceed, she said.
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Customer cellphone videos showed empty shelves and long lines of abandoned carts bulging with food and grocery items.
Electronic Benefits Transfer cards allows recipients of government food stamps to purchase items under a preset limit.
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It’s not clear how long the computer glitch lasted. Once shoppers realized the problem had been resolved, they abandoned their carts and fled the stores.
One patron said the chaos was a normal reaction to the prospect of free food.
Stan Garcia, another shopper, said it was just plain theft. “That’s stealing,” he said. “That’s all I got to say about it.”
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