No, really. Guess.

Are you entitled to a refund if your wrapping paper doesn’t sufficiently conceal a package’s contents? Megan thinks so. Last week when she wrapped her fiance’s Christmas present, he got an unexpected surprise. He could tell exactly what the gift was through the opaque wrapping paper.

I hurried home and wrapped my gifts before my fiance got home from work. This morning [December 19th -ed.], he and I were jokingly trying to guess the gifts we had gotten – picking them up, shaking the wrapped packages. When my fiance picked up the WRAPPED Wii-Play box his face fell, he said, “I can read what this is through the wrapping paper.” I grabbed the box, and sure enough, I could actually read “Wii-Play” right through the WalMart brand paper I had wrapped it in! I am heartbroken, this was supposed to be a surprise and my fiance had no idea what I had gotten him. Not only did the wrapping paper ruin the surprise of the gift he was holding, but he also now knows the “big” gift he’s getting: a Wii. I was very upset – isn’t the purpose of wrapping paper that it hides the contents it wraps?

I contacted WalMart Customer Relations at 1-800-WalMart and was advised that i could return the wrapping paper, for a full refund of $5.00. I asked the CS rep what would be done with my complaint, as I would not want this to happen to other people and was advised, after I escalated the call to a supervisor (since the first-level CS rep had no idea) that they would contact the store manager and notify him of my complaint, and if I liked, I could leave my name and number in case they had any follow-up questions – this is the extent of what they proposed to do.

Maybe the lesson here is not to wrap gifts in manufacturer’s boxes with light-colored paper. Or that some gifts need to be double-wrapped.

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