Last year, I worked for Walmart.com as an inbound frontline agent, and was promoted to a resolutions agent several months later...so I know my stuff. This is my advice to the person with the issues with walmart.com.

I used to work for one of the walmart.com call centers a few months ago and have heard stories like this way too many times, especially with the Nintendo Wii bundles. That is part of the reason that they have removed the number from their website and require customers to send in emails now, that a good bit of the agents that are in the US instead of the Philippines barely read...which explains the reply you received. That experience is why I don't even shop at walmart now.

In Walmart.com world, the charge "supposedly" does not clear until the order ships. Until then, it is placed as a hold on your account. If the item has not shipped by the date promised, it can be marked as "lost in transit", even though it really isn't lost, it can be placed in this category according to walmart.com policies told to us agents. Some company documents specify a time period of a week after the estimated arrival date to be considered lost in transit. Because of the price, a supervisor will have to mark the customers account so that they can be refunded. After this happens, the funds will take around a week to be credited (even though a supervisor will tell you 2-3 business days).

Another way to get refunded is to have your credit card/bank card issuer to contact walmart.com and verify that the order is technically "lost in transit". This will verify to the bank that this item is not going to be shipped. By doing this, the bank can then lift the hold. Walmart.com agents can also contact your bank to have the hold removed.

These are the only two ways that I know of that walmart.com will be able to refund the money. Mind you, I did work there until late last year, so some policies may have changed. I hope that you will be able to resolve this soon. I know how hard it is dealing with walmart.com.

Sincerely,
A former Walmart.com Call Center Resolutions Agent

Update - 06/27/08: The Unicorn says Wal-Mart called her today and offered to cancel the order!

Update - 06/26/08: The Unicorn posted a slight correction after we published this story: "hey, just to clarify — after Chris (I think) responded to my email re: the Terms of Service issue, I doublechecked my bank account & the funds haven't actually been withdrawn yet." However, she notes that since she can't cancel the order, those funds remain unavailable.

Here's her full story:

So, the Monday before last (6/16), my husband & I came to the unfortunate realization that the 80GB Playstation 3 we'd been saving up to buy was only available through a limited-edition bundle, & that the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundles were basically unavailable in any store near us. After contacting every Game Stop, Circuit City, Best Buy, Target, etc. in the Chicagoland region, we reluctantly expanded our search to the Walmart website, & after checking back several times, all of a sudden an "add to cart" option appeared next to the listing for the MGS4 PS3 bundle. And rationalizing that patronizing Walmart was worth it in order to get a rare piece of game equipment, we placed an order for the system, which the site said would arrive between Friday 6/20 & Tuesday 6/24. After the order was placed, it showed up as "processing" in Walmart's order tracking system, & I was told I'd receive a second email whenever the system shipped. I figured that was good news, but I was a little worried, because the MGS4 bundle showed up as "out of stock" immediately after the order was placed, & it seemed like a crazy coincidence that I would've gotten the last one.

Here's the thing: don't ever buy anything from Walmart, ever. I knew this, & ignored it, & now I'm paying the price.

Coincidentally, that same Monday night, my husband & I rented a movie from Blockbuster, & in the course of some chitchat the clerk randomly told us that they were the only Chicago store to have the MGS4 bundle in stock. (This was the one in Uptown, for any fellow Chicagoans, although I don't know if they'd have any more.) Since the order from Walmart hadn't shipped yet, we decided a PS3 in-hand was better than the promise of one from a retailer we hated, we took the Blockbuster clerk up on his offer & went home with our new toy.

Our plan was to cancel the Walmart.com order, but as it turns out, it's not possible to cancel online orders once they're placed. Fair enough; we figured we'd just sell the second system at cost on eBay or Craigslist whenever it arrived, or else return it to the store & eat the shipping charges.

...Except, the order is still listed as "processing" in Walmart's order tracking system. It hasn't shipped, & it certainly hasn't arrived by this past Tuesday like it was supposed to. But Walmart was certainly happy to take $550.00 out of my debit account as soon as the order was put through back on the 16th! I've emailed them through their website three times now, explaining that I need the funds freed from my account so that I can patronize a brick-&-mortar store that has the systems in stock. (I figured it would needlessly complicate things to say I already bought another system; the only reason that was even an option is that we're currently flush with wedding-present money, & usually having $550.00 missing from my checking account would automatically preclude any other purchases of similar magnitude.) My last response from Walmart came on June 21st, & it was just a scripted message explaining that they can't cancel online orders in progress because their distributors usually ship things so quickly that it's impossible blah blah blah — clearly not the case here, when the order in question has been languishing unshipped for over a week & Walmart still doesn't have the item in stock. All of this makes me really glad that I actually bought a real-live PS3 when I had the chance, but given that I don't know if Walmart's even going to be getting any additional MGS4 bundles, I'm starting to get worried this order will be stuck in "processing" for the rest of time.

Do you guys have any ideas as to how I can get them to refund the money they're holding hostage? I saw your list of executive numbers, but I don't know that any of those would necessarily be appropriate for an online purchase, & as much as I dislike Walmart, I'm hesitant to call up random people in their corporate office who probably have no recourse to help me with this issue.

We say it's time to go corporate. Don't worry about bothering them—it's why they get paid, to make things happen. In particular, they need to be made aware that they're not honoring their terms of service as listed on their website.

Update!: A former Wal-Mart call center employee has shared some tips on how to resolve outstanding orders like this one.

Terms and Conditions [Wal-Mart]
(Photo: Clean Wal-mart)

Adrian writes:

It’s Sunday, so it is the one day I have to take care of my personal business, and relax. My PS3 crapped out on me a few days ago, and sadly, I cannot get anyone at Sony to fix the problem. The thing is, the PS3 was a gift to me for Christmas. The receipt is nowhere to be found (not by me, but by the person who bought it for me) all she has is a credit card statement. Instead of going to the store and demanding someone give us a receipt for the transaction, I decided to call Sony and see if they would take it under warranty because, for starters it was bought in December, and it was manufactured in July 2007. When I spoke with someone at Sony, I was basically told that they don’t go off of the manufacturing dates, but rather, on the date of purchase.

Fair enough I would think, but if the playstation was manufactured less than a year ago, it would be hard to lie about it’s validity of the warranty anyways. No matter how I went at this, the rep couldn’t help me. Basically he said, no receipt, $150. I am outraged that Sony won’t make themselves responsible on an item which is CLEARLY less than a year old. Their own label on the PS3 clearly shows that it was made in July 2007, 3 months shy of the year mark. Why would they even place that label on there, if it wasn’t any good to them? I’m just angry that a receipt would still be needed, even though I can clearly prove that it should STILL be under warranty.

I tried arguing with the guy telling him I would switch to a Wii, or an Xbox 360, and he just laughed and said, “their support isn’t much better.” I told him I would tell all my friends about Sony and not to buy a Ps3, and he simply said, “that’s totally up to you, but we are gaining momentum right now with customers.” Basically, he was a jerk, my PS3 is shit, and nobody seems to want to help me. That is where you come in. Perhaps someone higher up will see the absurdness in this.

Adrian, we think you're probably expecting a little too much of Sony. They're simply not equipped to deal with this situation logically, and CSRs aren't allowed to make decisions that require independent thought.

Therefore, our advice to you would be to call the friend that gave you the PS3 and ask her to contact her credit card company and see if they'll repair or replace your PS3 under their extended warranty protection. This process should be fairly painless compared with the task you've set for yourself— convincing a huge multinational corporation to think like a rational human being.

Good luck.

Dustin writes:

I've got a smile on my face again.

I wrote to you last week with a bad email exchange I had with Sony regarding the hard drive on my Playstation 3. They had replied with form letters, no matter what I wrote to them. I ended up calling Sony and setting up a service call, but they insisted on having proof of purchase to get the machine fixed under warranty. They said if I didn't include a copy of my receipt, I would have to pay $150 for the service call. Since I got the PS3 as a gift, I couldn't get a receipt and was upset at having to pay money to fix a machine that was still under warranty.

Now to the good news: I received a call this morning from a number I didn't recognize, and since I'm at work I let it go to voicemail. Imagine my surprise when I listened to the message and it was a lady from Sony. She said they had found my email exchange and call notes, and instead of having my machine serviced, they are going to switch it out with a new machine (as a one-time courtesy).

She specifically stated that I would not need to include a proof of purchase, and that she would upgrade the exchange in their system to make sure things went smoothly.

I'll let you know if/when I get the new machine from Sony. In the meantime, they've redeemed themselves in my eyes. Someone took the time to track me down in their system and make sure I was happy. Hooray!

Dustin

Hey, good for you, Dustin!

(Photo: reinn )

"Bought a PS3 from my local Best Buy yesterday. When I got it home I found out it was broken. On boot up it would say "Need to restore hard drive, press X to continue". Pressing X would cause it to say "Restoring..." then after a few seconds it would restart, and would come up to the same exact thing, and repeat.
So, I take in my broken PS3 to Best Buy today, to replace it of course, and they refused to because the serial number on the console is different from that of the box. They accuse me of trying to trade back a different PS3 than the one I bought (I guess there are idiots that do that), in order to get out of paying to have it replaced. This, of course, is total crap because I bought this EXACT PS3 the night before.

I'm pretty sure I've figured out what they are trying to do. See, before, people were getting away with trading in their, out of warranty, broken PS3's. This means that Best Buy had many PS3's that were broken, and had different serial numbers than the boxes they were in (Which, is only their fault because they didn't check the serials on return). Normally Best Buy would just send these PS3's back to Sony and get reimbursed. Problem is, Sony won't reimburse for PS3's with different serial numbers then the box. So, what is Best Buy to do with all these broken PS3's with different serial numbers than the boxes? Well, resell the PS3 to the customer, in order to make back their 400 dollars. Once that's done, the customer can't prove anything, and now has to go to Sony in order to get their problem solved. In the end, Best Buy gets their 400 dollars, and doesn't have to back up the product they sell, and the customer is stuck with the problem. I will be calling Sony to figure out what's up with these serial numbers, but I'm not going to let Best Buy get away with this. They are the ones at fault, and I'm going to get my PS3 from them."

Make sure to have all your receipts and relevant information at hand and then give them a call.

The more we see complaints like this, the more we realize that you absolutely must check your items while you're still inside Best Buy. They will literally sell you a box full of shower tiles instead of a hard drive and no amount of complaining and filing police reports and reporting them to your state's attorney general will make them realize that it's fraud. Way it goes.

Google is like the elephant that never forgets... and it knows all of your personal information. Do you trust it not to be "evil?" Or is Google just a nice name for "Big Brother?" Let's not forget how they bowed to Chinese government demands that Chinese users be prevented from seeing certain search results, like information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Sony is a member of former Worst Company in America winner, the RIAA. When its not fake blogging, it can be found installing a rootkit on your computer and finding lots of ways to void your warranty.

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2008 series. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america/

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Ticketmaster vs Wachovia, Facebook vs The American Arbitration Association, Comcast vs Menu Foods
(Photo:Jeff Sanquist)

For those of you who are not familiar, many credit cards carry a benefit that doubles your manufacturer's warranty and helps you out of these sorts of sticky situations. When last we saw Reid, he was battling Sony Computer Entertainment for warranty repair because his system was having trouble reading discs. He lost, and Sony shipped the unit back to him. For the record, Reid says that the PS3 arrived much dustier than when he originally sent it. Not knowing what else to do, he bought a dust buster and cleaned the unit up, determined to fix it himself. Then he tried upgrading the PS3's firmware and the system completely bricked.

Thankfully, his Visa has extended warranty coverage and he'll be getting a new PS3.

Reid writes:

I just got off the phone with Visa for the third time and they are sending me a claim form to start the repair/replacement process of my system.

They at first said that they would need to attempt to have it repaired in my local video game repair shop, but I let them know that i had already contacted them and the firmware in combination with the blu-ray lens made it impossible to repair economically and it would have to be replaced. They said as long as I had a repair receipt stating that it wasn't economical to repair, I could walk into a Best Buy, charge a new PS3 to my credit card and they would credit that charge.

Thanks A LOT, for all your help, you guys have more helpful than i would ever imagine. Lets just hope I never need to email you guys again shall we?

Thanks again,

Reid

PS, This was possible because (some?) Visa Signature cards carry a "warranty manager" feature that effectively doubles the warranty on any product purchased on the card up to one year. Because the problem that bricked the system occurred after I was legally out of warranty, Visa is taking care of it. Again, I can't thank you guys enough, you really put the power in the customers hands in an industry where its customers are generally ignored due to their demographic. I owe you guys.

We love happy endings.

PREVIOUSLY: Dust Voids PS3 Warranty
Sony CSR: What? No! Dust Doesn't Void Your PS3 Warranty!
Is This Playstation 3 Too Dusty To Be Repaired Under Warranty?
TV Breaks Right After The Warranty Expired? Call Your Credit Card Company

PREVIOUSLY: Is This Playstation 3 Too Dusty To Be Repaired Under Warranty?

We just don't know. What we do know is that someone trying to sell their PS3 for $1250.00 mislisted it/ended the auction early/somehow fucked it up and quickly found a bidder at $9.99. —MEGHANN MARCO (Thanks, Ian!)

UPDATE: Chemman says:

Related: The $99,999,999.00 PS3

Check out the auction and see for yourself.

Greed and ignorance had buttsex and out popped buyer 912663XXXX. — BEN POPKEN

(Thanks to Ian!)

Smart retailers handed out vouchers for those line. Smart consumers stayed home. — BEN POPKEN

• Wisconsin: Teenager faceplants into flagpole while rushing for consoles (with video).
• Connecticut: Thugs rob people in Playstation 3 waiting line, shoot 1.
• Kentucky: Drive-by BB gun shooting.
• Oregon: Target line-waiters mugged.
• A volunteer for Senator John Edwards tried to have Walmart "help" the volunteer get a PS3. Walmart said in a statement, ""While the rest of America's working families are waiting patiently in line, Senator Edwards wants to cut to the front." This is days after Edwards participated in a conference with Walmart chastising the retailer for its labor policies...