5 Comments

  1. By Vivienne Armentrout
    October 12, 2013 at 3:28 pm | permalink

    Oh no. The Food Stamp program must have run out of its fund reserves.

    The sun is shining but it is a dark day in our nation.

  2. By Edward Vielmetti
    October 12, 2013 at 4:28 pm | permalink

    It’s a multi-state outage [link] including Ohio, Georgia, Oklahoma and others – the root cause appears to be some as of yet undisclosed problems in an ACS (division of Xerox) processing facility.

  3. By Edward Vielmetti
    October 12, 2013 at 4:36 pm | permalink

    A statement from Karen Arena, Xerox, via email:

    “During a routine test of our back-up systems Saturday morning, Xerox’s Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system experienced a temporary shutdown. While the system is now up and running, beneficiaries in the 17 affected states continue to experience connectivity issues to access their benefits. This disruption impacts EBT beneficiaries who rely on the system for SNAP and WIC. Technical staff is addressing the issue and expect the system to be restored soon. 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.”

  4. By Vivienne Armentrout
    October 12, 2013 at 6:08 pm | permalink

    Several Twitter reports that it is a technical problem originating with Xerox.

  5. By Edward Vielmetti
    October 12, 2013 at 10:08 pm | permalink

    A statement from Jennifer A. Wasmer, Xerox PR, which is going to go to Business Wire as well:

    ?Beneficiary access to programs such as SNAP, TANF, and other programs has been restored to the 17 States where Xerox provides EBT service. Re-starting the EBT system required time to ensure service was back at full functionality. Beneficiaries who required immediate access to their benefits could work with their local merchants who could activate an emergency voucher process where available. We appreciate our clients’ patience while we resolved this issue and apologize for any inconvenience. We realize that access to these benefits is important to families in the states we serve. We continue to investigate the cause of the issue so we can take steps to ensure a similar interruption does not re-occur.”

    I’ll be very interested to read the post-mortem on this outage.