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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
More Fun At Wally World
I went to the Fruitland Wal-Mart this afternoon after work and decided to buy a CD. The one I picked up had a price tag on it which usually means a mark down. I looked at the price and it said $.00. I thought, what luck, because usually a store will honor that price to keep a customer happy. I said something to the guy in electronics and he scanned it and it said $9.00. I said but the tag says zero, in fact, under the tag you could see the price originally was $8 and change. So they are leading you to believe that you are getting a bargain but actually they are marking the price UP! I went to the front register and asked to speak to the manager about the free cd. The CSM, Ellen, said "We are a retail store and we can't give away merchandise.' I stated that to keep a customer that most stores would admit their mistake and write off the loss. I asked to speak with the manager and after about 10 minutes Tracey showed up. Someone had obviously told her the situation and she was evil from the start. She said we are not giving you this cd, I asked her if I could take a picture of the cd and she pulled away and said no and started peeling off the sticker. I told her that the price had actually been marked up with the sticker. She kept peeling the sticker off. I told her that was not the way to treat a customer and that I was going to write to your blog. She said "Go right ahead!" So I did! Staffing is rude there and they move like slugs. I already have started shopping for most of my groceries at Giant. They are classier there. I just happened to stop to buy a cd, I guess Best Buy or Target will be my new shopping place, in fact, I went somewhere else to buy it and it was on sale and they were polite. The joke is on them, though, I saw at least 20 other cds marked that way but they weren't ones I wanted. The employees do such a good job there. Maybe someone else will have better luck!
This is stupid and the person who wrote it is even dumber. This is the kind of crap that is breaking down this country. Someone in the store made a mistake, someone else recognizes that mistake and attempts to screw the store on a “technicality”; have we all suddenly become lawyers?
ReplyDeleteAsk yourself; would your grandparents (The Greatest Generation) pull this crap? No.
Walmart has the right to correct a mistake especially for zero dollars... Get a life.. and try not stealing from companies
ReplyDeleteAnd you on the blog has ZERO effect on Walmart's bottom line --they are a 500 BILLION dollar company and growing so get used to it
Go WALMART!!!
HA try going to the texas roadhouse and having one of their employees stare at you and your family the whole time. I kid you not the lady sat there her entire meal and even while eating she just stared and stared. When we left the watched us as we made our way to the door, me being the person that I am, I waived. the lady actually stopped her meal and came out to the parking lot to ask me why I waived. It was a whole big confrontation. She asked me why i was starring at her the whole time. Now Ill admit I might have made some bad choices in girlfriends in the past but lets be honest you could not drink this women pretty nor is there enough liquor in three counties to persuade me else wise, especially not with my girlfriend there. I told her that i glanced that way because i knew her from somewhere and that it was wal mart. She replied with "well i dont know you." So me being quick witted "Well that doesnt change the fact that i know you sweetheart now does it." She then started with the name calling. first i was gay then i was fat. Gay definitely not, fat maybe but she had no room to throw stones, nor the stamina (she was really out of breath when she got outside) So our whole night that was going well ended up with me and some women who works at walmart in fruitland arguing in the parking lot after visually being molested by this women. Real winners work at that wal marx.
ReplyDeleteThe other day I pulled out my re-useable shopping bag at the register and told my cashier Shaniece that I wanted to use it.
ReplyDeleteShe promptly responded that she would just put all the merchandise on the end of the register and I could bag it myself. Apparently it was too much of a hassle to put it in a different bag.
What service!
seriously? You expect a store to give away a cd? Get real.
ReplyDeleteAre you an idiot? I wouldn't give you a CD for free. No store will give it ANYTHING for free.
ReplyDeleteI've got a good one for you too...
ReplyDeleteI was at Gordy's TigerMart Yesterday afternoon. I grabbed a couple of items and went to pay. For one, I had to ask somebody to ring me up because nobody was behind the counter. Then the cashier scan my items and said $4.19 so I handed her a $10.
In conventional math (the math that most people learn), if you take 4.19 away from 10 you should have 5.81. Right? Not here. She gave me $4.19 back! I told her "that's not the right change." She said "Yes it is, the cash register says so." I proceded to explain to her that $4.19 was the total and not the change. She couldn't wrap her head around it and I didn't feel like arguing, so I told her "I've already paid an astronomical amount into the system to try to educate folks like you, what's another $1.62 going to hurt? You and Gordy obviously need it more than I do"
Maybe its just a scam so Gordy can suck a little more money out of us...
While I do not expect any store to give anything away for free, I do expect stores to honor the prices they have marked on packages... Just this morning I picked up a grill cover that was marked $9.00 right on the package and a t-shirt for my daughter that was marked $11.00 right on the tag, and it was hanging on a rack that said $11.00. When the cashier scanned the items the cover came up as $16.00 and the shirt as $14.00. When I said something to the cashier she made a phone call to each department... the grill covers were never supposed to be marked $9.00 and the t-shirt price error related to the UPC code the manufacturer put on the tag. A kind manager came over and honored the prices for me and put people to work correcting the error in pricing on the grill covers and had the entire rack of shirts removed from the floor. THAT is customer service.
ReplyDeleteChriso...I ate there once...just once. After that the place became referred to in the "Bobby Household" as "Texas Roadkill." I am pretty sure the "horse" ribeye they tried to serve me that night was riden by a Rough Rider up San Juan Hill-and then the management told me it was "perfectly fine" and implied I was crazy. Then I told them of my trips to Texas and St.Louis for REAL steak. Do yourself a favor, and run a little further up/down the street to Adams or Outback instead!!
ReplyDeleteI shop at the Fruitland all the time and every time I need help I have always found them to be very helpfull and polite. You can't really expect a business to give away their merchandise. I'm sure it was an honest mistake. There is a lady by the name of Nancy R and a young guy named Sean Ennis that are especially helpful. Both go out of their way to assist everyone. Though I haven't seen Nancy recently. But these are just a couple. I don't know alot of their names but have never been treated bad at that store.
ReplyDeleteDee deee deeeeeee. Idiot. It is a place of buisness, not a charity. Keep your thoughts to your self for now on, you just made a fool of yourself.
ReplyDeleteWow so you expected to get a CD for zero dollars? Wow. Though I must admit I already regret even taking the minute it took to type this to let you know your a dummy.
ReplyDeleteHey Joe I know I am a little behind on this but I like the way the comment section pops up in a new window now. Good Job!
ReplyDeleteOh and who ever the person is about the CD, get off the Obama Kool Aid you idiot. Nothing is free, including Obama health care.
Dave C. As far as Gordy Tiger Mart goes they now have a New Yorker running it that has his head up his big a$$. The once nice and friendly cashiers and managers are now either gone because of this jerk or the ones that are still there can't find another job to escape from them or they were hired and trained that way. Best thing to do is steer clear the whole place is a BIG JOKE just like the new "Director of Operations".
ReplyDeleteYour statement:
ReplyDelete"I stated that to keep a customer that most stores would admit their mistake and write off the loss"
Not true. most stores will state that they have the right to change prices. This might even be in their store policy.
This is quite silly that this person thinks that Walmart should uphold the $0 price. And then, complain about it on some blog.
Anonymous 10:31
ReplyDeleteSounds like a disgruntled employee! Everyone knows Gordy Tiger Mart is a great business. It has been a great business for many years. get over it.
I have had nothing but bad experiences with Wal-Mart. The bad thing is sometimes you HAVE to go there because they have what you need at a good price. I try to shop elsewhere as much as possible because I absolutly HATE the place. As for everyone's comments about getting the cd for free, I'm not sure that's the entire point here. I think it's more of the attitude of the employees, obviously this person was going to buy this cd regardless of if it was $0.00 or $8 it's the point of professionalism when working with the pubic. If you're not a nice person, don't work a job where you have to deal with people. God doesn't like ugly.
ReplyDeleteI did pricing for a very large home improvement store in the area for a couple years. I know that if I misspriced something and someone challenged it at the register, we honored the price on the shelf. That is simply good business. Otherwise, wouldn't it be called bait and switch? Sometimes you have to pick your battles but this person was right to challenge this pricing error...if only to bring it to someones attention. Any manager of intergrity would have eaten the 9.00 "loss"-they really probably only paid .50 cents for the thing anyway-and then made sure all the other mismarked items were removed and corrected. WalMart is too big for their britches and they only want our money...they certainly don't need to care about our loyalty now that they are pretty much the only game in town.
ReplyDeleteThe real problem with Walmart is that the money gets sucked out of the local community and sent to China.
ReplyDeleteThis is just trivial noise. The guy expecting a free CD as a "gotcha" is just an idiot. Focus on the real issue.
I know the internet is new and all, but couldn't the "wronged customer" simply download the CD for free from her home and not have to ever buy a CD ever again? Who buys CDs anymore?
ReplyDeleteStores make mistakes. Get over it. If you are looking to Wal Mart as the true north in your personal compass of decency and well-being, you need a new direction in life.
Yes, many stores would honor the price THEY displayed.
ReplyDeleteThere is one principle to remember when dealing with Wal*Mart, and this principle is why you did exactly the right thing by posting about Wal*Mart's inept/deceptive pricing and rude, incompetent management!
First principle of dealing with Wal*Mart: Wal*Mart has NO integrity does NOT care what an individual customer thinks or says, period. Wal*Mart deals in huge, almost unimaginable volume. They could care less if you or I ever go back. The only way to make Wal*Mart take pause at their actions is to make their actions very public. If a Wal*Mart manager's rude actions or illegal corporate actions such as sexual discrimination and mass hiring of illegal aliens, (both of which Wal*Mart was found abjectly guilty and is infamous for doing), come to the veiw of the general public or courts, Wal*Mart suddenly becomes very "open, friendly and civic minded."
Contact the district manager and tell her or him of the stores inept/deceptive pricing and rude manager.
Show them the large readership of your blog and give them an example of the free negative publicity you are prepared to give them for their actions.
Somewhere up the line, at a level higher than their zombie store managers, Wal*Mart does have executives with intelligence and a feel for public opinion. Don't get me wrong, the higher you go in any corporation, the more corrupt management will be, but they will be smart enough recognize the error of a piss ant store manager being rude to someone with a voice that will be heard or read by many.
The district manager or would probably make their rude little store manager apologize to any degree you deem appropriate. Then, maybe, they would make her do her job and ensure that pricing wasn't done ineptly/deceptively!
oh my gosh, there's a band-aid in my soup! but walmart does suck.
ReplyDeleteI have refused to patronize the Fruitland Walmart for about 5 yrs now,since the day they threatened to call the police to make me leave,when I was with my 4 month old baby and terminally ill mother.I was getting my infant daughters pics (or trying to)done and after waiting for an hour past my appt time,the "woman" running the portrait studio let her family members "jump" ahead of me and when I complained her white trash redneck son cussed me out.When I complained to the store manager about the witch running the studio and her family running amok,I hit a brick wall.I admit I got loud because I was a paying customer,and they actually called over some 90 yr old greeter to "placate" me and threaten to call the cops.I will never ever go there again and tell everyone about my experience.They treat customers any way they want.If I treated customers like that at my job,I would be out on my arse.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago I went to walmat for my groceries. As I was putting the last item on the belt the cashier then told me she did not have enough bags to bag the groceries. When in fact she had more than enough, or if she thought she did not have enough I was willing to wait for her to get more. But no, she insisted that I go to another register. Let me say that was the last time I have been to Walmart to do my grocery shopping. I only go there if I have not other choice.
ReplyDeleteOh and by the way,it oesnt matter if the store made a mistake-most businesses honor marked prices,no matter how ridiculous,to keep from alienating a customer.Its not hurting their bottom line,after all they dont even prosecute on thefts under $25.
ReplyDeleteI know someone who used to work at that walmart. The manager of his department fired almost everyone and had two people working a 9 person department. Then the manager complained about two people working the department inefficiently. They ended up getting fired too.
ReplyDeleteAs far as customer service goes, Walmart isn't the greatest - I'll give you that. But you obviously knew the $0 was a mistake and tried to take advantage of the situation. Then, ironically, tried to say they were being sneaky by marking their price up from $8-something to $9. You are just as guilty as they are in the shady department. Get a real problem please.
ReplyDeletewelcome to America... where everyone wants something for nothing and, if they don't get it, they'll sue.
ReplyDeleteanonymous 3:33, where can I start sending you a bill for your subscription to Salisbury News?
ReplyDeleteNice reply Joe.
ReplyDeleteA person goes into a retail establishment knowing that no business can stay in business if they gave product away. He/she sees a product with an obvious labeling error which made the product $0.00, then starts her march up the chain of command to get said product for free. After any employee/supervisor/manager in their right mind would give any customer the same answer, "We don't give away merchandise," said customer has the right to talk about "class." Talk about classless.
ReplyDeleteThe author of this post actually did Wal*Mart a favor by pointing out the inept sloppiness of their pricing and rude incompetence of their manager! The incompetent mangaer in question should have sincerely thanked the person noticing the pricing error, given them the item for the price marked, corrected the pricing on the rest of the items and disciplined the employee who did the negligent pricing job.
ReplyDeleteIn court, I regularly see local stores losing complaints filed against them and paying big fines for the "mistake" of having items priced lower than the price they will actually scan at the register. There are laws covering pricing/register discrepancies to protect consumers from just this type of scam!
If a business has a certain percent of items that are marked lower than they will actually scan, that business will be fined, "mistake" or not!
Write down the price marked on every item you purchase at every chain store, then check your reciept to see what you are actually charged. You may be surprised at the number of times you are "mistakenly" overcharged. Don't waste time with the manager. She or he will make excuses about a delay in computer programming or other complete bull crap that pads their bottom line. Make a complaint to the authorities. The courts won't accept lame excuses that help stores fleece the public!
You know, if a thief goes in Wal*Mart & puts a false, low price sticker on an item and trys to buy it for that price, that is rightfully classified as shop lifting. If a store, "mistakenly" or not, labels something with a price that is lower than the price they actually charge, that is crimnal theft of their unsuspecting customers!
Free CD's thats just the beginning of the Obama handouts!....Sweet! I knew they were coming.
ReplyDelete4:33 I have a feeling this kind patron wasn't interested in pointing out a pricing error, this patron was interested in getting something for nothing. I can just envision the attitude of this "thoughtful customer" when her pitch of, "I should get this item for the price of the label (which was $0)" wasn't getting her her desired result. Part of the problem of America today, greed and many wanting something for nothing.
ReplyDeletePeople need to accept reality. You want the lowest possible price that wal-mart affords, but you expect professional, well-mannered, polite, intelligent, well dressed and groomed cashiers with superb communication, speed and customer service skills. News flash, those type of qualified individuals don't work for $8/hour behind a counter at wal-mart, and if they raised their wages to the $12-14 range, it would cost millions and probably billions of dollars at the nationwide level, and obviously cause the price of their products to go up.
ReplyDeleteEven the knocks on gordy's store... its a gas station for gods sake. People go into stores expecting the cheapest possible price, the cleanest possible store, every single one of the 32 cash registers staffed with a professional, courteous staff member so you can breeze through the line in 4 seconds, and the bathroom better be mopped spotless every time someone drops a lintball out of their pocket. This type of retail Utopia does not exist!
Rob S
10:40 sounds like you are one of the brown noser employees left that has been molded into the directors shadow.Poor thing you.I have heard AND seen the difference..of the past tiger mart to now and nothing you can say can EVER change that. Thanks for trying anyway and no NOT a disgruntled employee TRY AND TRY AGAIN!!!!
ReplyDeleteI remember a few years ago, if the item scanned at the price, Walmart would give the item free up to $10. So everyone jumping on the original poster about getting something free should stop. He was knowingly or unknowingly stating to a Walmart employee their own policy.
ReplyDeletePlus good luck trying to get Fruitland Walmart to price match their competitors ad. I once wanted them to price match something from Circuit City and they refused saying it was a competitor.
WallMart used to give you an extra $3 off if they scanned wrong but it was like pulling teeth to actually get it. Posted on every register but never done. They finally officially ended the policy. They still love to put items on "Clearance" with no discount at all and sometimes increase the price even. But then to all stores try this con. I remember going to stores that advertised 70% off only to find they had increased the normal price so the real sale price was only 5% off or so. I believe KMart still does this with jewelry.
ReplyDeleteI have almost never had a problem at WalMart getting them to honer their prices though. Unless of course it is an obvious mistake say $1.50 for a $100 item or $0.00.
It is sad that people try to steal from a store than blame the store.
Nothing on earth is free get over it. You are a thief to try to get it for free and an idiot to post this. Don't try crime as work you will be caught quickly.
10:39 There's a big difference between giving a customer the difference between something that should be labeled $9.95 but is labeled $7.50, and something that should be $8.00 but has an obvious erroneous price of $0.00. Let's get real. Let's put the shoe on the other foot. I wonder if this lovely customer, or you for that matter, would bring an error to a cashier's attention if they gave either of you too much change? I think I know the answer and the logic you'd both use to stick the money in your pocket.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't want to do your grocery shopping at the Fruitland Walmart, please go to the Fruitland Food Lion. It's clean there, they're very nice, and they need the business. No, I am not an employee there.
ReplyDeleteI believe I heard this exchange in Walmart and thought what an idiot this woman is! The manager offered her 3 dollars off but would not give her the CD for free. I felt that was good customer service. I guess some people think they have the right to get something for nothing. I would like to see her face if her boss, if she has a job, takes an hours pay because she made a mistake. We need to get back to fair is fair and right is right. I have always had very good experiences at the Walmart in Fruitland and refuse to shop at the North store because the employees in Fruitland are very friendly and helpful!!!
ReplyDelete