Consumerist
Reader Dave said he was shopping with his friend (male) at Walmart, searching for the coveted Nintendo Wii. He was happy to find that Walmart had 7 or 8 of the consoles in stock — enough for both he and his friend to purchase one. Walmart, however, had other ideas. Dave says that Walmart wouldn't let he and his friend each purchase a Wii because they were "together." First they're rationing rice and now men are forced to share their video games? What's going on in America, folks?
My friend and I went to Walmart (in Exton, PA) on Sunday evening (4/27/08) looking for a Nintendo Wii because neither of us owned the system and have been looking for it for quite some time.Dave, that's just weird. We'd suggest giving Walmart corporate (or even the manager of the store) a heads up about this incident. You seem to have encountered some sort of rogue employee who enjoys bullying people for no good reason.To our surprise, there were around 7-8 Wii's in stock. The problem? The Walmart employee working in the Electronics department (older man with glasses) refused to sell a Wii to both me and my friend. He would only sell a Wii to one of us because we were shopping "together." Mind you, we're not dating or married. Just two guys each looking for a Wii.
He said that because we were in the store together, we could only buy 1. It's as if we were the same person or something. He told my friend to come back the following day if he wanted one. We argued with him to no end...but he refused to sell my friend a Wii. I never heard of something like that before. It's not like I was trying to buy 5 Wii's..we each wanted one. Someone please tell me how Walmart can DENY a customer a product under these circumstances? I can understand if they have a policy stating one Wii per Customer per day. But, we were two separate people trying to each buy a Wii and pay with our own credit cards.
The man was rude to us, and he even had cocky remarks stating that my signature was only somewhat close to matching the signature on the back of my credit card. Mind you, I had to sign my name electronically, which is awkward to begin with.
Are Wiis really still this scarce? Has this sort of thing happened to anyone else?
(Photo:u2acro)
Comments
Keep in mind there were Wii riots in Haiti recently and that some restaurants are hording Wiis. Wal-Mart is just being careful.
Wallmart sucks comments in 3.....2.....1
Right now, the best place to get a Wii is eBay... seriously. What happens (this is seen a lot in toy stores with rare action figures), is that new product never makes it to the shelf because employees know when they're going out and arrange a buy so it can be put up on eBay for a tidy profit.
Right now there are tons of legit new Wii console sales on eBay that consistently go for $50 more than the retail price (you cannot buy standard $249 packages on any website).
This happens a lot at many retailers with other items as well, especially when toy companies "short pack" action figures to make certain ones more rare than others. They're usually bought with employee discount back in the storage area, and then eBayed... never seeing the shelf at all.
A store can refuse service, right?
So they can do this...just don't know why the would. Strange.
That is the funniest story ever! Rice and Wii, it's an Asian scarce. What can I say? I guess Walmart's slogan should be 'Always Low Rices....and Wiis"
Wow, thats complete crap. You must of felt horrible, being so lucky not only to find a wii, but enough so your friend could get one of his own, only to have to choose which one of you would take their beloved console home.
**** a bunch of Wal-Mart. I would of caused a raucous scene.
Wiis are still scarce, according to Nintendo.
Is America still going through a Wii shortage? Here in Shanghai, China they're everywhere and no one's running out yet. In fact, I could probably start a little business...
...
And to add, I asked a clerk at the local Game Crazy about where the best place to get Wii's (which they would normally sell if they had any), and he said eBay... they hadn't seen a console on their shelves in months.
This makes me laugh for no particular reason.
You know, I believed this story @ first because, well, Walmart sucks ...
BUT, this : " The man was rude to us, and he even had cocky remarks stating that my signature was only somewhat close to matching the signature on the back of my credit card. Mind you, I had to sign my name electronically, which is awkward to begin with. "
leads me to believe this story is totally bogus considering that just the otrher day Consumerist had a big ole' story about credit card signatures and weather you had to sign the card or not ...
I smell bullshit Consumerist.
@AlteredBeast: They do it probably because they don't want people coming in and buying multiple consoles just to turn around and sell them on e-bay. I know a lot of stores will only sell a given person one wii, and some people come in with a friend to buy a second one so that both can be sold on e-bay.
@AMetamorphosis: Is my sarcasm meter off?
so come in later to buy your wii. problem solved.
then once you have safely purchased and secured the second wii, go find the guy who denied your initial sale and tell him you got one anyway
@bonzombiekitty: If walmart says 'one per person', and not 'one per family or household', how the hell can anyone defend this?
@AMetamorphosis:
I do not understand your logic?
This is kind of like how some grocery stores sometimes won't sell you alcohol if someone underage is with you at the time. At least in that case they are getting pressure from retarded laws, but it's still just as stupid. Who are they to presume that I'm going to give alcohol to a friend that's under 21? The cops in the town I went to college actually arrested a bunch of students for buying alcohol and then merely putting it in a car with other students who were underage, claiming this constituted "intent to distribute to minors". Luckily I think everyone who got a lawyer got the charges thrown out.
This case is even more stupid.
@GotanOrange: Because like it or not, they can deny service for whatever reason they want (provided it falls within state & federal laws regarding discrimination).
@ChuckECheese: lol .. oh there's a reason.
and... the obligatory "stop shopping at walmart!!!!1 OmG!" I added the 1 to be ub3r c00l.
How would you like it if YOU wanted to buy a Wii and the jackass in front of you just bought all 8 that they had to sell them on Ebay. Most retailers are doing this exact same thing to give more people a chance to buy one at retail price. You may be surprised how many times 2 guys walk into a store and both buy one with no intentions of keeping them.
If you're in NY, head over to the Nintendo Store on West 48th. They get them in "all day and every day" as the guy behind the counter described it. I had ordered a bundle online, but was able to cancel it, buy a Wii, avoid ridiculous shipping costs, and avoid being forced to buy a game that I don't really want. They did take my Driver's License info, which may be a way of speeding up the death of the grey market.
@bonzombiekitty: The point is not whether or not they have the legal right to do this. Of course they do, just like they have the legal right to do all kinds of annoying, anti-consumer things. The point is that it's absolutely terrible customer service.
Why should WalMart care. Really....
WalMart stocks the merchandise to sell. I can understand not allowing one person to buy more than one.. I guess. But isn't WalMart there to sell this crap? So why do they care who they sell it to?
Not that there's anything wrong with it...
wiialerts.com is how I got my wii... before Christmas... got a txt message, logged on to my email, followed the link... took me directly to the source (in this case, Amazon.com), added to cart, purchased and voila! brand new wii (the coveted $250 price) in less than 2 weeks from when my search began! shipped in 3 days... and everyone said i would never get a wii in time for xmas...
@Gorky:
Except the retailer does not dictate what you can do with your purchase once you've paid for it. In theory, you could buy the Wii, then smash it in front of the store. They have no business trying to discern what your intentions are with your purchase.
Yes. It happened to me at the Apple store in King of Prussia PA. My husband & brother-in-law wanted to purchase 2 Macbook pros -- one for each of them. The sales person denied the sale to both because when they asked what would they do with their old macs, the reply was to either sell it or give it to another family member. Somehow, the sales person thought this meant that they were RESELLERS. I guess TWO laptops to two individual qualifies one to be a "reseller." Stunned... we asked to see the manager, but were denied. The sales person told us that the Store Manager (she) agreed with him. So we were SOL. We ended up having to drive to a different store which was more interested in taking our money...
@Gorky: They weren't trying to buy all of them; just 1 each. It's not anyone else's business what they intend to do with their purchase.
Has "1 per person" become too lenient now?
"I'm sorry but your second cousin's friend just bought one of these at a different store. We can't sell this to you. Have a nice day and thank you for shopping at WalMart. Bye-bye."
wait...so after the guy ringing you up was an ass, you still bought one?
Sign up for wiialerts. They email you whenever stores have them instock online. I got mine in about 2 weeks.
@opsomath:
Of course...it's still a Wii. And notice how the OP took the one Wii they were allowed and let his "friend" come back later to get another one.
A couple of months ago, when all the major electronics retailers got huge shipments of Wiis (~50-100 per store) on the same day, me and a friend went and bought one each from the store, and they had no problem selling us each one, even though the sign next to the pile of Wiis with the employee handing them out said "One per customer".
@chemmy: Because they please more customers overall if they can provide requested goods to more people than just a handful of people.
Lets you have 100 widgets for sale. Widgets are in very very high demand and limited supply. One person comes in and buys all 100 of them to sell them on e-bay for an inflated price. Sure you made the same amount of money on those 100 widgets as if you'd sold them to 100 different people. But by not selling to 100 separate people, you're missing out on secondary sales (whether it be things like warranties, accessories for the widget, or just other stuff in the store). You've also decreased the chance that people will come to your store for their widget needs in the future. Not to mention that the inflated price the third party would buy the widget for decreases the amount of money available to buy other things for the widget.
For a product in high demand, it makes sense to try and ensure that you are not selling to people who are going to just turn around and sell it to a third party at an inflated price.
I'm pretty sure that there's a law against selling multiple Wii's to gay couples... not that these guys are gay or anything (or that there's anything wrong with that) but maybe the older guy had those special glasses that could tell if you might be gay.
Wow, there are far too many things in this story to laugh about.
@Gorky: We all know "why" the guy at wal-mart "thought" he was doing right but that doesn't make it right or even estabilished store policy.
You're right they could of taken it and sold it on eBay or like in this case one could of taken it to one house, the other could of taken it to another (thats how I got my wii. Mom and Dad got one each, one for me, one for my brother, neither ended up on eBay).
This is one of those thing where the OP really only had his shot at getting things made right at the store. Even if he were to contact corporate now its not like they're going to magically make a wii appear for him. I would of done what some one else suggested and just dealt with another associate, probably a manager.
@dualityshift:
Yes they have no say what you can do with it after you purchase but if there is some clown who comes in pisses off your other customers because they bought all the Wiis the last 4 times they came in and you start losing OTHER customers it is definitely in their best interest to limit sales to one per person.
Not these guys were trying to, but I always hated it when people tried to circumvent the "One (x) Per Customer" rule by pulling the "well, this is my friend" routine.
@bonzombiekitty: Even if they have good reason to not sell multiple Wii's to the same customer, they had no valid evidence that that was what was going on here. They were just assuming it was based on the very tenuous idea that they must be colluding just because they were together and both wanted to buy one at the same time.
@smirky:
Often times when a group of people come in all looking for a Wii they are looking to each get one to sell on Ebay and sometimes ONE person is paying for all of them but just needs his buddies to each pay for one to get around the limit. Now these 2 may have not been doing this but its common enough that it hurts honest people. Its just like everything else. Some people abuse a system and it ruins it for everyone. Same reason return policies suck at most stores now.
@johnva: May be tenuous, but it's not exactly an unfounded possibility. In a business's view, they're better off denying the second sale. If they weren't going to turn around and sell it on E-bay, then no big deal, there's plenty of other people who are willing to buy it. If they were, then they're missing out on other possible sales.
It's not perfect but you can look at rough probabilities to make such a judgement. Does it suck for the people that get screwed over? Yep. But I'd first put blame on the people that cause these sorts of policies to be put in place.
@Gorky: Yes, it's possible that that is occurring. I just don't think stores should be trying to divine their customers' motives before selling them something. I can see having a one per customer policy. I don't think it makes sense for them to try to guess what a group of people buying them plan to do with them, based on no evidence whatsoever. Same reason I have a problem with the stores assuming you plan to share alcohol with your underage friend just because he or she is with you at the time you bought it. My brother is much younger than me, and I've been hassled just because I bought some beer along with a bunch of other groceries when he was tagging along. Luckily they usually drop that if you argue.
@Gorky: 2 people is hardly a "group".
@bonzombiekitty: "Rough probabilities" are not a good enough reason, in my view. Should we all be subject to probabilistic computer algorithms whenever we buy something? For example, should the cash register deny me an alcohol sale because they think I'm "probably" an alcoholic based o