People supposedly using Katrina debit cards on purses

[Mercer Boy]

Why did I have a feeling this would happen. This is a gossip column, so I can't be sure how true the info is.

Profiteering ghouls have been using debit cards distributed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - intended to buy essentials for evacuated families - in luxury-goods stores as far away as Atlanta.

"We've seen three of the cards," said a senior employee of the Louis Vuitton store at the Lenox Square Mall in affluent Buckhead, who asked not to be named. "Two I'm certain have purchased; one actually asked if she could use it in the store. This has been since Saturday."

The distinctive white cards were distributed by the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and carry a value of up to $2,000.

"It doesn't say anything on the card other than alcohol, tobacco and firearms cannot be purchased with it," the store employee told me. "There's nothing legally that prevents us from taking it, unfortunately. Other than morally, it's wrong."

The source told me that the two women who had made purchases with the card each bought a signature monogrammed Louis Vuitton handbag in the $800 range.

"They didn't look destitute by any stretch. You would never have said, 'They must be one of the evacuees.' … The one that I dealt with yesterday was 20. She'll be 21 next month." The source described the reaction of other store-keepers in the mall - which includes luxury brands Ferragamo, Burberry, Judith Leiber and Neiman Marcus - as "outrage."

"It doesn't say anywhere on there, but it would have to be a good amount to be shopping in here," the source said with a dark chuckle.

[mutantseabass]

You had to figure that this was going to happen, some people are just plain ignorant and the others are too stupid to know they are ignorant.

[Redskins Win]

You had to figure that this was going to happen, some people are just plain ignorant and the others are too stupid to know they are ignorant.

Who, the red cross for giving these people the cards or the people with gall to use them on such crap, oh wait maybe both.

[bagobonez]

This is the problem. They shouldn't just hand someone money. THey should buy the things for them.

It's like a "homeless" guy asking you for $5 so he can buy "bread" or "milk" or "gas" when really he wants to go get some booze.

Offer to buy the guy a hamburger instead of giving him $5, and suddenly he doesn't need food so bad.

It's not that hard really....

[awwchrist]

what about school supplies for displaced children? or over the counter medicine? or smaller things and the like that may not be necessities, but definitely aren't considered extravagant by any means.

In such an impossible event, it's impractical to expect such simplicity Bags. "Buy it for them"? That just won't work.

The goal is to get them back on there own two feet and into some assemblance of real living...not depending on waiting in a line for every little thing that pops up. If that means issuing two thousand dollars per person to alleviate what it can, than so be it.