A computer glitch at Kmart leads to everyone being granted store credit cards - and a large-scale brawl erupting.. Two women started scrapping and then several men got involved. A Kmart worker was punched in the nose and smashed through a glass display case. Customers were calling up friends and telling them to come down to get the "free money," $850 to $4000 in credit After applications ran out, one customer grabbed more from another Kmart and started selling them in the parking lot for $20 a pop. Watch out, when the American Dream is a blue-light special, consumers are liable to get bloodthirsty.
Computer Glitch Leads To Brawl At Wauwatosa Kmart [WISN] (Thanks to Anthony!)












Comments
Live, from K-Mart: The Jerry Springer Show!
Even the Kmart shoppers hold a tradition of class.
Hmmm a Kmart post following a Sears post. Anybody else see a pattern of bad posts all relating to the disaster that is called "The Sears Holding Company?
How classic that KMart shoppers would consider credit to be 'free money'.
I'm so confused by this article. So a loser who doesn't pay his/her bills applied for a credit card and was approved so he/she called all their loser friends who came in to apply for credit they had no intention of paying back and were approved. At this point all the loser friends called all their loser friends until Kmart had a mob of low lifes fighting over credit card applications? What the hell is this country becoming?
How is a Kmart credit card free money?
God what a glorious day it would have been to see that. I would have paid good money to watch the white trash inbreds duke it out. Got to love the joke that is middle America.
"Free money"? Since when does a store credit card equal "free money"? Or were all of these people actually rioting over a $10 signup bonus? I'm confused.
@Falconfire: I guess bigotry is OK as long as involves allegedly white people, huh?
Wow, do that many people not understand how a credit card works and thinks it is "free money"
I understand that you get a free $10 for applying, so yea - that is free - but when you spend $20 on an application from a guy in the parking lot, you actually lose $10 - meaning that they must think that the credit card is "free money". No wonder so many people are in debt - their stupid.
This story is depressing on so many levels.
People suck.
If the system was glitched and was automatically approving all applications for credit, than that is indeed "free money." Put down false information on your application, buy $4000 worth of stuff with your fraudulent credit, and go home with it.
I'm confused to the free money bit, unless they were approving people like "John Doe" and "Jane Smith" at 123 Fake St.
It figures that this would happen in Wauwatosa, though. For those not familiar with the Milwaukee, Wauwatosa used to be suburban, but it's been a bit ravaged by urban sprawl and people flocking out to Waukesha. There's kinda three areas to Tosa: a semi-upscale mall with surrounding upper-middle class housing and strips, a trendy downtown/main street area, and what used to be middle class housing areas that really got burned by sprawl. Not sure exactly where this Kmart is, but my guess is that it's somewhere in the strip area and all three groups kinda decended in there. Milwaukeeans are just a bit on the spendthrift side of things. Sad to see people from back home acting like yokels.
Then again, Wauwatosa isn't too far from West Bend, where they trample each other to get their hands on the PS3.
You are all thinking inside the legal box. I'm guessing Kmart gave credit to I.M. A. Leech or Maj. Or. Jackass.
And that's why I do all my shopping at Wal-Mart...they are much classier of an establishment.
@DallasDMD:
Its not bigotry if it's true. The kind of people who'd get into a fight over credit card applications are white trash inbreds.
And for the record, I'm white. And not too trashy. And have many forks in my family tree.
I think what the article is saying was that originally if you got a credit card, they would give you $10 or credit (ie your first bill was -$10 balance) but the computer glitched and was giving out credit card accounts which already had a -$4000 balance so you could buy $4000 worth of merchandise and then have a 0 balance on the card.
I heard that this was happening in almost all kmarts because they wanted people to sign up for credit cards so they were approving everyone, in order to get more signups.
@stinerman: The story has not fully established the race or the inbredness of the people involved.
In fact, I looked at some of the pictures and the video of the story and I see several Black people. How would you or anyone else respond if I called them savage n-words?
@stinerman: [www.wisn.com]
watch the video and come back on here with your racist garbage again, punk
@drkkgt: That would explain it, but the article is really poorly written if that's what they were trying to say.
@DallasDMD: Just cause their black doesn't mean they can't be white trash, inbred, or rednecks.
@cde: Yeah, and I'm a white "black man" myself.
@Falconfire: enough with the bigoted/racist comments.
don't see it? just replace "white trash" with "black criminals" or "illegal mexicans" and maybe you can see the point.
Somehow I keep picturing Homer Simpson in the middle of this mess :D
Let 'em kill each other.
@Phanatic: Until they track you down and prosecute you for credit card fraud.
@mandarin: You mean Peter Griffin. Homer doesn't do many blatently illegal things (Except Insurance Fraud)
@cde: Then they'd be black trash, wouldn't they?
@forever_knight: Yeah seriously, what's with all that? They have poor judgment and manners, that much is obvious, but I agree, the racist BS is uncalled for.
Funny story, funny comments, A++++++ would read again.
Oh, and this never would have happened at Caldor's.
@coan_net: "their stupid" or they're stupid"?
@forever_knight: middle american trash is equal opportunity. :) I mean no offense to Middle America, or Trash for that matter, but the combination of the two can be both deadly and hilarious.
Regardless, the phrase "K-Mart Melee" has very much pleased me today.
I have made deliveries to that K-Mart. Trust me, the people who shop at that K-Mart are not exactly...the nicest people around. They even have uniformed security who check people's receipts when leaving. That after they've gone through the security scanner. I've never seen that at any other K-Mart.
@DallasDMD:
Moron. He is calling out racist garbage spewed by Falconfire. Let me explain it for you.
Falconfire made an outright racist statement. Dallas called him on it. You supported the racist statement, saying if it were true, it's not bigotry. Dallas tried to explain it to you, and you called him the racist.
Get a clue.
Listen, everyone just stop fighting and listen to "Short People," okay?
Sounds like the usual K-Mart, Sears, JC Penny card routine. Here's how it works. You fill out the application and get $5 or $10 off of that purchase for filling out the app. The computer says yea or nay on a card. If it is yes, you can shop with that card number and the computer print off of your approval.
Plenty of people are filling out the apps for the $10 off, why not. Then it starts approving EVERYONE. Illegals, homeless people, your dead uncle Bob whos info you used, etc... Chaos ensues.
best. quote. ever.
I wonder how much merchandise walked out the door during the brawl.
To all those saying you can just put down false information and get a credit card... well, you can't.
You have to provide a photo ID, or at least a utility bill, to establish your identity. Doesn't apply to pre-screened offers, of course, because they've already established who you are and assume (sometimes wrongly) that the mail with your name on it is going to wind up in your hands.
The stores are required to hold that information for a number of years. This is how they stop Random Employee #32865 from just running an assload of fake applications.
Wow it seems that my calling people white trash (which they where) touched a nerve here from some of you people.
1) Since when was white trash racists slang? Its not like I went through here calling them crackers...
2) IM FUCKING WHITE YOU IDIOTS.
I mean jesus I was expecting some heat at calling middle America a bunch of rejects... but white trash? Talk about picking out the wrong thing to get pissed off about.
(reads artice, then comments)
ummm, wow.
since when did "white trash" become a racist word?
Was Toby Keith informed?
[en.wikipedia.org]
the sears holding co. oughta unhold the k-mart and let it fall into the cesspool......sears doesn't seem to good to me either...starting to carry shoddy crap........just dosen't seem like the sears i usta know........
A new word for the day from the lady with the injured knee - "Trampede", love it! When do the lawsuits against K-Mart begin?
You know, Kmart is rather ghetto. Not a race specific ghetto, just generic ghetto. It's equal opportunity ghetto. People of every colour of the rainbow can be totally trashy at a Kmart.
It's odd that Kmart now makes Walmart seem classy.
Give me Target any day of the week ...
I do not see "white trash" as racist. It is what it is, when it is. And I'm a whitey.
Some may want to bone-up on the exact definitions of the following, as many people mistakenly use one for the other(s):
Racist vs. Bigot vs. Prejudical.
..suppose it helps if I spell correctly: prejudicial
Me be white trash today.
@Falconfire: It's not the term you used; it's that you assumed that they were all white; from the comments of those who watched the video, that's not the case. Calling people idiots for not somehow knowing you're white doesn't help; there's no reason we should assume you're white until you've told us, and it doesn't make the assumption that only white people would fight for free money/unwarranted credit any less racist.
@Buran: Actually no. They would not be "black trash."
White trash is a double insult. It's racist because you need to quantify "white" trash. It was assumed that just "regular" trash was non-white.
So white trash is actually STILL a blow to all non-whites.
Mandatory cultural sensitivity training can teach you all sorts of crap.