Walmart Sucks (of Why I Hate Walmart, the Sequel)

If there are any readers of this blog from back when I first started it you may remember a series of posts that I made not soon after starting my blogging career entitled "Why I Hate Walmart." This series of posts continued over many posts, here (and sorry for the hard to read yellow type, what was I thinking?), here and here and finally here.

So today I was shopping at Walmart. I was looking at those digital frames the you put a SD card into and it can show hundreds of pictures. My niece got one for my brother for Father's Day while we were up in Tennessee and it was so cool. I see one on the shelf, under a $59.00 price tag. There's two, one on the shelf below, with the $59.00 price tag too. The next ones go up to $79.00 and up. I figured I'll start with the $59.00 one. I snag it and head up to the registers.

When I get to the registers it rings up $79.00. Hmmm, I think to myself, not good. Twenty more dollars than I was planning to spend. I politely inform the cashier that it was on a shelf marked for said $59.00. She says she has to go talk to her manager, which I understand. Off she goes, to return within a few minutes. Actually more like ten minutes. She called the electronics department and they told her it was supposed to be $79.00 so her manager said that was they have to charge for it. Hmmmm, I think to myself, not good again. I ask to speak to a manager. She says she already talked to her manager. No, a manager above that one.

So she calls and I wait.

And wait.

And, can you guess what, wait some more.

About twenty five minutes later a manager walks up. "Come show me where you got it." He says. Not an introduction, not a "I'm sorry for the problem. I'm sorry you had to wait." Just follow him back to the Electronics department.

And guess what? When the cashier had called the Electronics Department the person she had talked to moved the picture frame that was in the $59.00 spot to a spot that read $79.00.

I told the manager of the situation. He said that someone had just moved the frames. I told him that the description on the tags were no help, it said digital picture frame, so when I picked it up I was thinking I was getting the one for $59.00. I told him that if only one frame had been in the spot and the others in the $79.00 spot I would understand. Customers move things and don't put them back. But both, and one above the other, with the $59.00 price tags. He said they didn't go by the descriptions, but by the bar codes. I didn't mention to him that customers don't go by the bar codes. I just pointed out to him that the bar code on the frame in question didn't match the bar code on the tag that he was insisting was it's tag for $79.00. He didn't have much to say to that. He said well, I can give you a couple dollars off it, but that's it.

Still I have not heard one word that makes it sound like I'm not the person in the wrong here. I know customers are always trying to get over. I work in retail. I also know how you handle customers. Even if I'm not going to get what I want, there are ways to handle the situation and he did nothing.

I told him, no thanks, I'll just contact your home office.

So I walked up to the front, found the district manager's phone number on the wall by their customer service and was dialing before I left the store. Of course no one answered, but I left a message.

An hour or so later the district manager actually called me. I explained the situation to her. She said she'd get right back to me. That is the magic word she used, right back...she wanted to call the store and get their side of things. It's now almost eight o'clock at night and she called me around one. I guess her idea of right back is different than mine.

I have to work overnight tonight. But tomorrow I guess I'll call their home office.