- Someone tried to buy over $1,000 of groceries with food stamps at the supermarket chain Food Lion.
- A Food Lion worker posted on TikTok, saying the customer abandoned their carts and didn’t end up paying.
- “I hate food stamp day,” the worker wrote in his TikTok video caption.
A viral rant about a person who tried to buy over $1,000 worth of groceries with food stamps — then left the store without completing the purchase — has divided TikTok.
“I hate food stamp day,” a man named Malik wrote in a caption of his TikTok post, published Monday. Malik included a hashtag for Food Lion, an American grocery store chain.
“This is why. Cause, what, three carts full y’all,” Malik could be heard saying in the background as he panned his camera across the cash register. Three shopping carts, each packed to the brim with groceries, could be seen in Malik’s video.
The TikTok user then asked a colleague to hand him the customer’s voided receipt. According to the receipt, the attempted transaction took place on September 2, and the customer’s purchase totaled $1,013.73.
“Yo, they didn’t even buy it and that’s what making me even more mad,” Malik said.
“This is why. This is why I be mad at work,” he continued.
Malik’s post has been viewed over a million times and has received over 2,400 comments at press time. Insider was not able to independently confirm which branch of Food Lion Malik works at, or their position at the store.
The people in the comments section questioned why the customer went to the store to ring up a large purchase before checking how much they were able to spend.
“How do people not check the card balance before going to the store?” a person asked on TikTok.
Some were critical of the unnamed customer after seeing the items in the shopping carts.
“Its always the ppl on FS that use the money to buy Junk. I don’t see a single vegetable in that cart. All junk food and snacks and candy,” read one comment.
“Look at all the frozen meals and ramen noodles. They are too lazy to work AND too lazy to cook. SMH,” another person commented.
But others told Malik to have some empathy and consideration for the customer, who could be struggling financially.
“To even afford that amount of food, there has to be a lot of people in the house. They probably been hungry since the 15th. Food stamps are a blessing,” read one comment.
According to the Pew Research Center, 41.9 million people, or 12.5% of the total US population use food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program or SNAP for short. Households can rely on SNAP benefits to purchase necessities such as bread and vegetables but aren’t allowed to purchase alcoholic beverages and health supplements, per the US Department of Agriculture.
Representatives for Malik and Food Lion did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.
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