Using food stamps now easier at commissaries

[unhappycamper]

Using food stamps now easier at commissaries
By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Aug 29, 2008 16:39:58 EDT

It’s now easier for commissary customers redeeming food stamps to use their Electronic Benefit Transfer cards — and they have more privacy, too, as all checkout lines now accept these cards just as they do any credit or debit card.

The new checkout system is dubbed the Commissary Advanced Resale Transaction System, or CARTS.

Previously, commissaries had to use stand-alone, state-provided systems to process the benefit cards, and the terminals were installed on only one or two registers. Food stamp benefits are not received overseas.

“On occasion, customers with food-stamp EBT cards found themselves in the wrong line, and we’d have to direct them to use one of the registers with an EBT terminal,” said Gary Hensley, director of the commissary at Fort Benning, Ga., in an announcement from the Defense Commissary Agency. The Fort Benning commissary rang up more than $1.1 million in purchases in the food stamp redemption program in 2007, tops among commissaries.

“Now, we take food stamp cards at every register, and customers waiting in line never know the customer in front of them used food stamps,” Hensley said.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/08/military_foodstamps_082908w/%2e