Someone tried to sell me foodstamps?

[mom0810]

Is that even legal? It was right before I walked in to Jewel and she stopped and asked me if I wanted to buy foodstamps. Huh?!?! I have never used foodstamps before, and I have no idea why she asked, but I was really shocked.

[Theia]

No, it's not legal.

[2xy]

People sell their food stamps because they want to use the money for other things....often drugs or booze. Sometimes it's because they need cash to pay a light bill or something.

[Smithie]

I thought all states were now giving out food stamp benefits on reloadable cards, to prevent exactly this kind of horror show.

Where I grew up (poor rural area), this was practically a cottage industry in the parking lot of the only large grocery/liquor store in town. Sell your stamps for pennies on the dollar, the other, usually also poor person who is willing to commit fraud gets more groceries than they could otherwise have bought that day, you get cash for booze.

[Drummer's Wife]

years ago I had a neighbor offer to buy me food with her food stamps if I took her grocery shopping. I declined, b/c it just felt weird! I did give her a ride, though. Another time she needed money and offered me twice the amount of food for cash -- but I also said no, and kinda felt bad about it since we were friends. I did give her diapers, wipes, and toilet paper - which were among the things she insisted she needed the funds for, but knowing her DP, I'm guessing he wanted drug/alcohol money.

[Theia]

Originally Posted by Smithie

I thought all states were now giving out food stamp benefits on reloadable cards, to prevent exactly this kind of horror show.

Where I grew up (poor rural area), this was practically a cottage industry in the parking lot of the only large grocery/liquor store in town. Sell your stamps for pennies on the dollar, the other, usually also poor person who is willing to commit fraud gets more groceries than they could otherwise have bought that day, you get cash for booze.

To use your "reloadable card" aka EBT you just swipe and put in a personal pin number like you would a debit/credit card. I've never been asked to sign or prove the card is mine in anyway. It is illegal to give your pin and card to anyone else, but obviously ppl still do it for the reasons that other posters have listed.

[bobandjess99]

yep, I remember seeing this growing up. People would "sell" their foodstamps to get cash in return. Then,m they could use the cash for whetever they wanted, be it non-food grocry items, or drugs/alcohol, or other bills, etc.

[waiting2bemommy]

no, it's not legal, but it happens all the time for a variety of reasons. I believe it's something given us for free and so it's wrong to capitalize on it (plus, I budget my foodstamps to last the whole month, so it would mess up my meal planning/grocery shopping to dip into that) but I have done it a few times. I'm probably the only person on this board who will admit to it, but I say it just to say that it's not always done to get money for alcohol or drugs. However, I would never BUY fs from someone I didn't know and trust wasn't going to use the $$ for something like that.

In my case, I sold them once when ds was sick and needed medicine and we had no cash. Another time I had a terrible yeast infection and I didn't even have enough $$ to get on the bus and go to the free clinic, so I tried to sell some fs to get the OTC cream. I ended up getting the $$ another way though. A few times I have traded $5 or so in FS for bus fare.

Food stamps usually sell 2 for 1; that means they are worth half their value in cash. If you are caught truly marketing them (like making a business out of it, I don't think most caseworkers would take issue with the trading FS for bus fare, for example) you can lose your benefits for increasing lengths of time and even go to jail.

People sell their WIC food too, which I think is incredibly ungrateful and just plain stupid. I see WIC formula for sale all the time on craigslist and it pisses me off. Again I totally understand selling pretty much anything in an emergency but there are people who actually make income doing this and it's really wrong.

[Smithie]

FWIW, I couldn't care less if food stamps get traded for OTC medication or busfare or whatever on occasion. The real crime there is that cash assistance for these little emergencies is so incredibly hard - basically impossible - to come by, and the black market pays 50 cents on the dollar! When I was a checker at that grocery store I described above, I once had a lady with an emergency food voucher from the town (ie her family was STARVING) pay me in pennies for a roll of toilet paper, and THAT SAME DAY I sold fresh lobster to a women who paid me with food stamps. It's a crazy world, I tellya what...

[SunshineJ]

One of my friend's friends traded food stamps for babysitting for a few months apparently. I never knew all the details, just that she HAD to work, something about car repairs taking her cash, and her really shoestringing the food budget and paying the sitter in groceries. I won't condemn her, you do what you have to do. I've personally never traded food stamps for anything. For one, I wouldn't have a clue how to do so, like a pp, I budget for the month and use them, and you know, if 1000 people did it, I'd be the one to get caught! I wouldn't dream of buying them from anyone. With the costs of food, that scares me that people will end up hungry. However I DO think a very limited amount of non-food items should be allowed - like toilet paper.

[Theia]

Originally Posted by SunshineJ

One of my friend's friends traded food stamps for babysitting for a few months apparently. I never knew all the details, just that she HAD to work, something about car repairs taking her cash, and her really shoestringing the food budget and paying the sitter in groceries. I won't condemn her, you do what you have to do. I've personally never traded food stamps for anything. For one, I wouldn't have a clue how to do so, like a pp, I budget for the month and use them, and you know, if 1000 people did it, I'd be the one to get caught! I wouldn't dream of buying them from anyone. With the costs of food, that scares me that people will end up hungry. However I DO think a very limited amount of non-food items should be allowed - like toilet paper.

I agree. You do what you have to do sometimes. I'd never have the courage to try it though. I also think they could allow toothpaste and bar soap. I understand why they don't, but just saying......

[Dar]

Back in the old days, food stamps were actual pieces of paper, kind of like colorful paper money that came in a book. Any change of a dollar or more was returned to you in food stamps, but any change of under a dollar you got in cash.

So, if you needed toilet paper, you could buy one bulk carrot or onion and pay for it with a food stanp and probably get enough change to buy a package. If you needed bus fare, you might have to go through a couple times...

[Kailey's mom]

Our economy sucks right now..and food stamps don't cover anything but food. They dont' cover rent, electric, water, clothes, toiletries etc. Maybe this person had all the food they needed for the month but had 10 dollar left on the food stamp card. They could use the 10 dollars to put towards the light bill..or maybe some misc things they needed. I'm NOT talking about drugs or booze! I can see how, with the severe shortage of jobs, people are having to resort to this..and other things they thought they would never ever do. hth

[BfBobby]

Originally Posted by Dar

Back in the old days, food stamps were actual pieces of paper, kind of like colorful paper money that came in a book. Any change of a dollar or more was returned to you in food stamps, but any change of under a dollar you got in cash.

So, if you needed toilet paper, you could buy one bulk carrot or onion and pay for it with a food stanp and probably get enough change to buy a package. If you needed bus fare, you might have to go through a couple times...

Oh man I remember my uncle needing cigarette money and sending us kids with $1 each to buy a small candy so he could get the change together for a pack of smokes lol.

It seems like it'd be more difficult now with the EBT cards, would you just go through the line with the person you were selling to/buying from?

[lucifugous]

Originally Posted by Dar

Back in the old days, food stamps were actual pieces of paper, kind of like colorful paper money that came in a book. Any change of a dollar or more was returned to you in food stamps, but any change of under a dollar you got in cash.

So, if you needed toilet paper, you could buy one bulk carrot or onion and pay for it with a food stanp and probably get enough change to buy a package. If you needed bus fare, you might have to go through a couple times...

I didn't know this. I always like a little peek at how things used to be, thanks

[mom0810]

I didn't think it was legal. I can't believe she approached me. She first asked me if I speak English... (huh?)... and then asked me if I wanted to buy f/s. SO weird.

I am sure it was probably as so many previous posters said and she was looking for money to buy other things... but I was so in shock because I can't imagine taking assistance and then selling it for something else! OMG.

[Leta]

Yeah, now if you want to convert food stamp money to buy things like dental floss and Qtips it's a lot more complicated than saving your coin change. But there are still a few legal ways to do it.

You need to shop at places like Walgreen's or Target that give you rebates or gift cards for certain food items. I buy all my WIC stuff at a supermarket called EconoFoods that gives you "Baby Bucks"- basically, if you buy any specific baby items, your entire order counts toward Baby Bucks. So if I use all my WIC at Econo, I get ~$200/mo in Baby Bucks. When you turn in your Baby Bucks receipts, you get a $10 gift card for every $150 in Baby Bucks. So I buy WIC, and then I go and buy dental floss and Qtips.

If you do stuff like this, and you stop using paper products and you make soap and lotion and toothpaste everything else possible, you can cut your non-food grocery expenses to the bone. But it takes time, organization, and there's a learning curve.

And, if what you need is money for your electric bill, this method will not work.

[Deefodil]

When I was on FS, I traded them for cash to pay the elec bill one time.

[shayinme]

I would imagine for everyone person trying to sell food stamps for alcohol or butts there is one person who needs money for things that are not covered by food stamps, like toilet paper and soap. In my area there is a pantry that carries only non-food items because so many people need them but have no way to get them. I would imagine there might be an increase in this sort of thing as there are so many more people getting these benefits and in some cases having no cash to live off of. There was a piece in the NY Times a few weeks ago about the increase in folks whose only income was food stamps.

While for many here its easy to say make your own soap, or don't use paper/disposal products, how easy it is to make that change if you don't have the resources to start?

Though as someone else pointed out if you need cash to pay the light or phone bill (useful items) how else do you get cash? Frankly I think we create these types of situations by not allowing folks access to cash benefits.

[Leta]

Oh, totally, Shay! I didn't mean to say that it's easy to make soap, or that it's cheap upfront to make the switch to cloth everything.

Cripe, between microfiber towels, mama cloth, family cloth, very basic cloth dipes, Shmop heads, and cloth napkins, I bet we have $400 invested. This was done over time, some of it was gifts, but there a lot of people who just don't have the money to spend. Heck, there are people who don't have enough money to buy dishes, and are stuck buying paper plates every week.

If your ONLY income is food stamps, it's really hard to get ahead by investing in durable goods as a replacement for consumable goods. When DD was born, I was in school full time and DH made $7something an hour. We sat down and plotted and strategized as if we'd be really poor forever. But we had some cash income to do that with.

I've heard about things like diaper banks- places that give out sposies and wipes to families. Which I think is an awesome idea. (Yes, I use cloth but I have a washer and a dryer, and a car to get to the laundromat if my appliances break.) Our Vinnie's does a similar thing- they have stuff like shampoo that you can come and get.

I think it's silly that you can buy pop with FS but not toothpaste.