The next time you go to do your 3 a.m. grocery and table saw shopping at your local Walmart, you may notice that the septua-, octo-, and nonagenarian greeters that used to stand between you and the brightly lit aisles of Walmart wares are no longer there. [More]
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Walmart Casts Itself As "Retail American Idol" In Search For New Products
By 1.20.12
Your dream of putting hard work into inventing a new product so that it can be sold for bargain prices at big box stores around the country is about to come true. Walmart is holding a contest for inventors to compete for a spot on their shelves. [More]
Solving A Problem With StraightTalk Is Not All That Straightforward
By 1.6.12
Like most of the StraightTalk customers we’ve heard from, Barb was happy with Walmart’s mobile phone venture…until something went wrong and she had to deal with their customer service. In her case, the problem was that she ordered a smartphone that didn’t work. Simple enough to solve, right? Well…not quite. [More]
Tests Show No Connection Between Enfamil Baby Formula & Child Deaths
By 1.3.12
Late last month, Walmart and a handful of other other retailers decided to pull certain lots of Enfamil powdered baby food formula from shelves following the death of an infant in Missouri who had recently consumed the product. But tests by authorities at the Enfamil plant now show no link between the formula and this child’s death. [More]
Was I Wrong To Profit From Returning An Online Purchase To Walmart?
By 12.29.11
A frequent reader who we’ll call M. wrote in to offer his post-holiday moral dilemma. Well, it’s not so much a dilemma, since he he’s already done it. He bought a Microsoft Kinect controller online, but wanted to return it after the holidays were over. Too lazy to package the controller and mail it back, he instead took it to his local Walmart and returned it for store credit. $50 more than he originally paid for the device. [More]
No, You Don't Need To Drop $1000 On A Wifi TV To Use A Roku
By 12.28.11
Sure, you should research purchases ahead of time, but discovering new things while shopping out in the real world can be fun. Reader HogwartsProfessor was browsing the electronics section at Walmart and had some questions about a Roku. Two associates told her that no, the devices only work if you have a wifi-enabled TV. This isn’t true, as she learned: the point of the Roku is that it is the device that streams Internet content to your TV. [More]
Walmart Pulls Baby Formula From Shelves As Precaution Following Death Of Newborn
By 12.22.11
Out of precaution, Walmart has pulled a specific lot of Enfamil powdered baby formula from the shelves of all its stores following the death of a newborn child in Missouri earlier this week. [More]
Walmart Managers Turn Away Wannabe Secret Santa
By 12.20.11
The biggest trend this holiday season appears to be people who have some money doing something nice for those who might need it by anonymously paying for layaway purchases. But when a woman in Houston attempted to do this at two of her local Walmarts, managers at both stores turned her away, citing a nonexistent company policy. [More]
Target Apologizes To Rebuffed Students; Walmart Ups The Ante With More Cash
By 12.14.11
Yesterday we brought you the story of an Ohio middle school teacher who penned an open letter to Target after an employee told her that she and her group of 25 students would not be permitted to do their annual holiday shopping to benefit a local charity. As you might have predicted, once this news hit the web that goes worldwide, Target had a change of heart — and Walmart made a nice counter-offer to the put-out teacher and her charges. [More]
Shoplifter Stabs Walmart Security Employee In Parking Lot
By 12.12.11
Something odd must be in the water at a Walmart in Georgia. At the very same store where syringes were turning up in clothing, an employee was stabbed over the weekend after confronting an accused shoplifter in the parking lot. [More]
Walmart Announces It's Probing Itself Overseas In Bribery Investigation
By 12.9.11
We’ve got to at least give Walmart credit for being unafraid to admit they’re getting frisky with themselves. More specifically, they announced in a securities filing that they’ve launched an internal probe into whether employees were bribing foreign officials overseas. [More]
Walmart Charges A Dollar More For Weaker Shampoo In A Smaller Amount
By 12.6.11
This makes sense! Why buy the cheaper bottle of stronger dandruff shampoo, when you can buy a smaller, pricier version of the same shampoo in a weaker strength? Such is the reasoning at Walmart, as witnessed by Consumerist reader Steve. [More]
Walmart Customers Keep Finding Syringe Needles Inside Clothing
By 12.2.11
Oh, wacky Walmart! If it’s not someone getting pepper sprayed on Black Friday, it’s a jab from a syringe needle: Multiple customers in Georgia are claiming they’ve found needles in clothing from Walmart, and in some cases, were stuck by those needles. [More]
Alleged Walmart Pepper-Sprayer Turns Self In But Won't Talk To Cops
By 11.28.11
By now you’ve likely heard about the Walmart shopper who police originally said used pepper spray to give herself a competitive advantage while bargain hunting on Black Friday. In the days since that incident made national news, the woman believed to be responsible for injuring at least 20 people has turned herself in to the the authorities — but she’s not really giving much of an explanation for why she thought a cloud of pepper spray would be a good idea. [More]
Walmart Continues To Short-Change Customers On Gift Receipts
By 11.23.11
It’s been six months since reporters in California first caught several Walmart stores offering insufficient refunds on items returned with gift receipts. And then they confirmed two months ago that it was still going at Walmart’s across the country. In spite of all this evidence that the nation’s largest retailer needs to fix its gift receipt system, customers are still being screwed over when they try to return a gift. [More]
Here Are Some Cheap Coffee Machines You Can't Buy
By 11.23.11
Here’s a strange phenomenon that reader Jay came across at his local Walmart: Black Friday creep. No, not the race among retailers to see who can open the earliest. Yesterday (Tuesday) Jay picked up a $4 cofeemaker from a shelf full of them, but wasn’t allowed to purchase it. He was told that the item wasn’t for sale. Not that he couldn’t get it at the posted price: he couldn’t buy it at all. [More]
Walmart Offers $27 Million Settlement In Netflix Class-Action Suit
By 11.16.11
If you’ve received an email saying you’re entitled to make a claim in a class-action lawsuit against Netflix and Walmart, don’t toss it. Walmart has thrown in the towel and is offering to settle with customers who sued the retail giant and Netflix after the two companies made a deal to promote each other’s DVD businesses. [More]
