By Garrett Haake (NBC) From the moment Mitt Romney stepped off stage Tuesday night, having just delivered a brief concession speech he wrote only that evening, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself.

Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked.

via The last days of Romneyland – First Read.

A Reddit comment on the full extent of the ugliness:

rokkitgurl 23 points 4 hours ago*

No, they were told their expenses would be covered, regardless of the outcome that night. The Romney campaign went back on its word. Plain and simple.

One of my friends worked for the campaign. Her credit card was turned off well before midnight. In fact, it was deactivated after Pennsylvania was called, well before the end of the election night. She ended up leaving early and flew back to Minnesota that evening, on her own personal credit card. She also noted that most staffers were unable to book flights back to their home states on the cards, despite being told only hours earlier that the campaign would pay for it.

This was her 3rd presidential campaign job and says she’s never been more disgusted by Romney’s treatment of his staff in the final hours. She also said the McCain campaign not only paid for her flights home in ’08, but she was offered a job in McCain’s congressional office after the election. Most of Romney’s staffers will likely be unemployed until Inauguration Day.

EDIT: She’s just told me that the hotel rooms were NOT prepaid and many of the younger intern staffers, some that were paid minimum wage, were frantically calling their parents from Boston, post election morning, asking them to pay for the rooms!

EDIT 2: Just to clarify for those who messaged me… Yes, she basically was given her pink slip halfway through election night. When her card was deactivated, she knew she was unemployed at that point. It’s why she flew home so soon. She was at the airport waiting to catch a redeye when Romney gave his concession speech.