Update: The error has been corrected and EBT cards should be working correctly now.
Thousands of people receiving food stamps in the Valley were left without any funds to purchase food and other essentials Monday because of a computer glitch.
For more than seven thousand people in Fresno County when they swiped their Electronic Benefit Transfer card at the store, they were told the card was canceled.
“As early as 7:30 this morning we had clients showing up at doors with their EBT cards not working,” said Sanja Kovacevic with Fresno County’s Department of Social Services.
She says the problems started this weekend when computer programmers were working on the system.
“Inadvertently these cards were switched from an active status to a canceled status,” Kovacevic said.
18 counties were effected, a total of 39-thousand people statewide. And seven thousand of those are in Fresno County.
The money is still on the cards.
Thousands came into local offices Monday and were issued a new card.
But the programmers are working on a fix so that the cards that were canceled will work again.
“So my message would be to clients would be not to walk through our doors tomorrow but rather wait until 9 or 10 and test their cards,” Kovacevic said.
