Food stamp debit cards not working in many states

Shoppers left carts of groceries behind at one store in Maine because their food-stamp debit cards did not work. Vendor Xerox Corp. said it was working to solve the problem.

People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure.

"While the electronic benefits system is now up and running, beneficiaries in the 17 affected states continue to experience connectivity issues to access their benefits. Technical staff is addressing the issue and expect the system to be restored soon," Xerox spokeswoman Jennifer Wasmer said in an emailed statement. "Beneficiaries requiring access to their benefits can work with their local retailers who can activate an emergency voucher system where available. We appreciate our clients' patience while we work through this outage as quickly as possible."

Related: Anxiety sets in as stimulus hike in food stamps nears end

U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Courtney Rowe underscored that the outage is not related to the government shutdown.

Read more:

http://news.msn.com/us/food-stamp-debit-...in-many-states/

Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #2

---

Weird.

---