PA: System failure delays welfare to hundreds

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Hundreds of welfare recipients across Pennsylvania were temporarily gypped out of some of their benefits for six days because of a ATM-system glitch, the Department of Welfare confirmed yesterday.

People who tried to withdraw cash benefits from an automatic teller machine during a few lunchtime hours last Tuesday had that money taken from their account, but didn't get any cash.

"A frantic woman came to me for help," reported Amina Muhammad, who runs an outreach center in West Philadelphia. "I called the Department of Welfare and was told the money would be recredited to her account in 30 to 45 days. But someone on welfare can't live without money that long."

Pennsylvania, like 42 other states, no longer sends out welfare checks and food stamps. Instead, recipients receive their benefits electronically, in a system known as EBT, or electronic benefit transfer.

Recipients access their benefits with a card, which can be used to withdraw cash at an ATM machine or buy food at a market.

Pennsylvania's Department of Welfare pays Citicorp Electronic Financial Services to run its EBT system. And it does run "99.9 percent of time," claims company spokesman Mark Rodgers.

Unfortunately, there was a hardware failure at a processing site last Tuesday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. During that time, Pennsylvania welfare recipients ended up with a receipt that said the amount had been deducted from their account, but no money was dispensed.

According to federal law, Citicorp is allowed 30 to 45 days to fix the snafu. But, in fact, the problem was solved by late yesterday afternoon - six days. "We apologize to the people who were inconvenienced," said Rodgers. "Sixty percent of the funds were recredited the same day. By noon yesterday, 85 percent was restored, and the rest was restored by the end of the day."

But according to Muhammad, that was still six days of anxiety.

The good news, according to Jennifer Walker, director of government relations for the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, is that this kind of problem doesn't happen as often - or last as long - as it used to.

When Pennsylvania first implemented the EBT card program in 1998, Walker recalled, there was a lot of down time. Recipients were sometimes turned away when food merchants were unable to determine if the customer had money in a food-stamp account.

"Angry customers would leave filled shopping carts in store aisles," she said. "There was one fight in Philadelphia where a checkout clerk was hit with a shoe."

Although there are still kinks in the program, Walker said. "Small stores that don't have electronic card readers have to work with a manual voucher and phone system. And stores that do have card readers have to pay a transaction fee now that they didn't have to pay when people used paper food stamps."

Stephanie Suran, spokeswoman for the state Department of Welfare, said recipients who called the department hot lines in the past week were instructed to call a Citicorp hot line to report the problem. However, she said, anyone who continues to have a problem today should call the welfare department's hot line, 800-692-7462. *

Philladelphia Daily News

-- Anonymous, August 28, 2001


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