Walmart: Your Generous Holiday Gesture Is Blocking Foot Traffic In Our Vestibule
Barry Goldberg decided that this was the season for giving — so he spent $1300 on $10 Walmart gift cards and stood in front of the store handing them out. Until Walmart stopped him.
Barry is an out-of-work mortgage executive who just wants to dress as Santa Claus and hand out gifts. Is there anything so terrible about that?
The next thing I knew, they turned to me and said, ‘You have to leave the store. You can’t do this here. You’re soliciting,’” Goldberg said. “I said, ‘I’m not soliciting anything. I’m giving.’”
The out-of-work mortgage lending executive said he still has 44 gift cards left from his weekend adventure.
“They asked me, ‘Well, where did you get these cards?’” he said. “’I bought them from your store 20 minutes ago.’ ‘Well, what are you doing?’ (they asked). I said, “I’m giving out gift cards. It’s the holidays. The right thing to do is to give, isn’t it?’”
In a statement to Eyewitness News, Wal-Mart states,” While we appreciate the customer’s patronage, we understand that he was interrupting the flow of foot traffic in the store’s vestibule.”
There's a happy ending though, Target swapped his Walmart gift cards for Target ones and let him hand them out in front of their store.
Secret Santa Shown Door At Wal-Mart [WFSB] (Thanks, Dan!)
Attention, Walmart shoppers! This ad is for you! Woo hoo!
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Comments:
hbahahahahahahah!!! Go Target!
"Target swapped his Walmart gift cards for Target ones and let him hand them out in front of their store. "
That's the most beautiful negative publicity I've ever heard.
Hooray for Target. And fuck you, Wal-Mart.
@Echomatrix: "Anatomy, Zoology. any of various cavities or hollows regarded as forming an approach or entrance to another cavity or space, as that of the internal ear."
The internal ear wasn't quite the first vestibule that sprung to mind...
Huuuge win for Target.
@TheSpatulaOfLove: My guess is they thought he was handing out marketing flyers or something and then idiotically refused to back down once they realized that wasn't what he was doing.
Just when you think WalMart management couldn't get more retarded.
Wow, I have never been so glad a Super Target is going up next to my house than right now. I think I will bypass Walmart every chance I get now. Way to crush Christmas cheer Walmart.
I'm off to Target tonight to help my boyfriend with his last-minute Christmas shopping. Yay, Target!
I kinda pity the cashier that had to run through all 130 of those gift cards though.
So ironic, considering TGT's attitude towards bell ringers in years past. And I love how everyone is so quick to jump on corporate over some local co-manager's dumbass decision. That's the Consumerist way, though.
Hmm, I don't get the math.
He bought 130 cards. He stood outside a Walmart at Christmas and he still had 44 left.
That has to be the least trafficed Wal Mart ever.
If you stood out in front of the Wal Mart by me with 130 gift cards, they would be gone in 5 minutes tops.
Nah. That was easy work. It's not like he/she wouldn't have been scanning and bagging something else in that time if not gift cards.
I pity the people behind him in line.
@Oranges w/ Cheese: Scanning 130 identical bar codes probably took him/her all of 90 seconds...a lot less that it would have taken to ring up 130 individual items of varying shapes and sizes.
He's fortunate the headline to the article isn't "Wannabe Santa Killed in Wal-Mart Stampede".
@ophmarketing:I guess you have never bought wm gift cards each one has to be indv. slid and the amount entered to activate. I just did 12 the other day and it took awhile.
i bet the cretins thought he was damaging potential sales. as in, gift cards are meant to be lost or forgotten, not used to buy stuff in the critical pre-christmas shopping blitz. "those people should have been spending their own money!"
On the one hand, I don't think we should vilify Wal-Mart corporate for a stupid local management decision. But then again, this kind of crap is pretty typical for Wal-Mart. I consistently have issue with customer service at each and every Wal-Mart I visit. The workers and management are usually rude, inattentive, and/or absent. Eventually top-level corporate management has to be held accountable.
Alas, I'm a slave to Wal-Mart's low prices and turn a blind eye to the crappy service (a la Randy Marsh on South Park).
@CreativeLinks: It also said weekend adventure. There are no details on if he gave them away at once or during certain times. He also may have choosey on who he gave them to as opposed to giving them to everyone that walked by.
@ophmarketing: Well if you were just scanning the barcode you'd just change the quantity to 130 and scan so it would be even easier.
I'm not 100% sure how Wal-mart's system works (never worked there never bought a gift card there) but if its like other places I have gotten gift cards from they also have to run the card through the register on the card reader and I could see where that would be a pain.
@The Name's Ash78, Housewares: I happen to be pro anti-bell ringer. It's obnoxious. I understand it's a good cause and all, but high pitched bells suck. They need more base. More cow bell.
@gamabunta: Perhaps Target should hire some "Best" Buy thugs to "check your receipt" at their doors. That would solve it.
I wonder if Targoof can just verify a purchase via credit card used? They use these very frightening mechanical boxes that "suck" in your card and then spit it out. I always wonder if and when the thing will malfunction and I'm going to be on the phone to my bank telling them to cancel and send me a new one because of Target's funky machines....
Eh. Most Wal-Marts have a policy that you can't stand in their vestibule and sell/offer/solicit/gift-give without store approval. If the let him do it, they would have to let everyone do it- church groups, boy scouts, nursing home bake sales all clogging up the front. Them's the breaks.
The dude could have always went to the manager and asked first (FUNNY, he went to Target and asked them. That's more courtesy than he gave Wal-Mart). THAT way, the store knows what you're not just some creepy dude handing naked images to children. TRUE STORY.
People always give Wal-Mart a bad rap without thinking stories all the way through.
@The Name's Ash78, Housewares: Regardless, the manager is a representation of the company.
Corporate's response of "While we appreciate the customer's patronage, we understand that he was interrupting the flow of foot traffic in the store's vestibule" was not exactly heart-felt.
If the "Consumerist Way" is so awful, I'm sure there are plenty of other websites you can patronize. Just make sure you don't block the web-site's vestibule.
$10 says they see a few target employees walk in and buy up a load of cheap plastic crap to rebrand.
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Like I have always said,
"People go to Walmart because they HAVE to,
and they go to Target because they WANT to.
Oh.. This is not good. How do they explain the Salvation Army people standing outside ringing their bells all day? They're "soliciting" donations. The Walmart that I go to frequently often allows various church groups, girl scouts and, a lot of hack charities to stand at the door soliciting people. I guess it's an individual store policy or, my Walmart didn't get the memo about solicitors. I really don't like being bothered when I'm trying to enter and leave the store. This guy giving out gift cards shouldn't have been a problem. They were Walmart gift cards weren't they? Where else would these people spend them?
@johnva: My guess is they thought he was slapping the customers with the gift cards as they entered the store. Why comment based on facts when you can just guess? :-/
@kreatre2009: 1) Yes it depends on the store and 2) Those organizations ASKED first. BEFORE they set up outside.
@CreativeLinks: This was also Lisbon, which is on the way to the Really Fucking Quiet Corner of CT... which was busy getting shit-hammered by snow this past Friday and Sunday. But people were out and about Saturday, sooooo... I guess it's plausible.
@CreativeLinks: Or maybe some people were too weirded out to take the card from him. I know I would be suspicious if some weirdo standing outside of Wal-Mart stopped me and asked me if I want a free gift card... o_O
Next time, take the TARGET gift cards and hand them out in front of Wal-Mart for as long as you can get away with it.
THAT'LL really grind their gears when they realize how many customers you sent over to Target.
@David S: "I consistently have issue with customer service at each and every Wal-Mart I visit. The workers and management are usually rude, inattentive, and/or absent."
Apparently the race to the bottom with wages, combined with forced labor off the clock, denying promotions purely based on gender, and other nice things Walmart does isn't conducive to attracting people who give a shit about how they do their jobs.
Combined with the overall feeling of those Walmart stores, I often wonder how low your socioeconomic level has to be to subject your soul to regular visits there.
"He said it wasn't a gimmick it (sic) or stunt."
People dress up as Santa and hand out gift cards outside of stores all the time. Didn't smack of a stunt at all!
Was this his penance?
"Here, poor people who shop at WalMart. In my previous job as a mortgage lending money-gouger, I talked you into buying homes you couldn't afford and now you're struggling. I'm taking my last $1300 to make it up to you, now that I'm destitute just like you."
@Drowner: Whoever said the internet is fair? Mob mentality is SO much funner than, like, analyzing stuff.
I don't know... Am I the only one who's weirded out by some wacko former exec-type handing out gift cards like that? I don't know what this guy's personality is like, but if it's anything like the other regulars I see at walmart... well... you do the math.
I'd hesitate to use one, half expecting the walmart black helicopters with commandos to descend upon the register for using one, thinking it's fraudulent.
I'm not defending walmart or target either. In fact, not even going to touch that. Just looking at the situation that provoked the whole thing. Who does that?
@aaron8301: While Target isn't perfect... it's far better than Walmart and I continuously shop there instead of Walmart. I haven't been to a Walmart in months.
@Drowner: Uh... I read the linked article and watched the video-
Target contacted him, not the other way around.
Wow - The Walmart management mouth-breather mentality never ceases to amaze me...