LOUISIANA — Managers of Walmart stores in the small, north Louisiana towns of Springhill and Mansfield alerted police on Saturday evening, October 12 that throngs of shoppers had flooded into the stores and were buying groceries, using electronic benefit cards that contained no credit limits.

When word got out Saturday that the EBT cards were showing no limits, card holders rushed to area Wal-Marts to take advantage. Hundreds of shoppers stormed the grocery aisles, some reportedly with eight to ten shopping carts full of groceries. 

Xerox said on Saturday that its systems that process EBT transactions suffered an outage, stemming from routine testing of backup generators that malfunctioned. Louisiana was one of 17 states affected by the outage.

Xerox denied taking the blame however, pointing the finger at Walmart. Xerox corporate spokesman Bill McKee provided a written company statement, saying that Xerox has a “documented process for retailers, like Wal-Mart, to follow in response to EBT outages.”

Wal-Mart corp had apparently been informed about the glitch, but  relayed a message to the local stores to continue accepting the EBT cards that evening. At about 9 p.m., the EBT cards were again showing appropriate spending limits. 

Hundreds of shoppers, waiting in long lines, were angered by the news, and left dozens of carts, filled with grocery items, behind. 

The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services said it would not provide the amount of overspending that had occurred, but relayed a message that shoppers would not have to pay the money back.