While T-Mobile waits to see if AT&T can convince the justice system that the two companies should be allowed to merge, the smaller wireless provider has made a deal that could help it gain needed customers in case that deal falls through. Today, T-Mobile announced that it will offer a $30/month pre-paid plan exclusively through Walmart that will provide users with “unlimited” 4G data and texting. [More]
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Pennsylvania Woman Wins Fifth Lawsuit Against Walmart Over $.02
By 9.30.11
A woman in Pennsylvania is once again making headlines after she successfully sued Walmart over a $.02 price discrepancy and won $100 for her troubles. But this isn’t the first — or second, third, or fourth — time she’s taken Big W to court over small change. [More]
Walmart Still Short-Changing Customers On Gift Receipt Returns
By 9.20.11
Back in May, an investigation by CBS Sacramento found that a number of Walmart stores were short-changing customers with gift receipts when they tried to make returns or exchanges. And though the nation’s largest retailer said at the time that this was not store policy and it would “be communicating with our store associates to reinforce our practice,” it appears as if this message hasn’t gotten through. [More]
Shoplifter Sentenced To Life In Prison After Walmart Worker Dies
By 9.16.11
Last June, while attempting to heist a $348 TV from a Texas Walmart, a shoplifter knocked over a Walmart staffer, sending him to the hospital where he would die nine days later. Now that shoplifter has been sentenced to life in prison, even though he was never charged with the worker’s death and the medical examiner determined the actual cause of death was end-stage liver cirrhosis. [More]
Man Arrested At Walmart For Sampling Raw Meat From Packages
By 9.13.11
A man in Pennsylvania was arrested yesterday after he allegedly chose to forgo the traditional route of shoplifting food from Walmart and instead decided to just chow down on some raw meat right there in the store. [More]
Walmart Bringing Back Layaway For Holiday Shopping Season
By 9.8.11
Five years after Walmart stopped offering customers the option to put most purchases on layaway, the nation’s largest retailer has decided to bring it back for brief run during the 2011 holiday shopping season. Of course, this being Walmart, the holiday shopping season begins in October. [More]
Walmart Shopper Borrows Electric Shopping Cart For 11 Days, Uses It Like A Car
By 9.6.11
You know those electric shopping carts you can use while shopping at Walmart? Then you likely also know that you’re supposed to return the cart when you are done shopping. You’re certainly not supposed to keep it for 11 days until you get ticketed by police for driving it down a public road. [More]
Friday Tipster Round-Up: Holiday Creep Edition
By 8.26.11
Sifting through this week’s submissions, it looks like users of the free Consumerist Tipster App had the holidays on their brains. Of course, it appears they didn’t have much choice as stores have already begun packing the aisles with Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas items. [More]
Walmart Shopper Sacrifices Minivan To Stop Shoplifters From Fleeing
By 8.24.11
A customer at a Florida Walmart was one of several people who spotted two women run out the store’s front door with a cart full of allegedly stolen merchandise. And when he saw this pair try to escape in a car, he decided it was time to intervene. [More]
Vizio Takes Advertising Broken Amazon Streaming Very Seriously
By 8.23.11
Perhaps it was naive of Josh to assume that his Vizio Blu-Ray player came with free Amazon.com video streaming. It’s listed as a feature of the player, Amazon is one of Vizio’s “Internet apps,” and the Amazon logo is featured on the product box and on Vizio’s site for the product. All that doesn’t mean that Amazon streaming actually works, though. [More]
Walmart Is Dying Because Its Business Model Is Strangling Itself
By 8.23.11
Make sure you read this in a spooky voice in your head: Wal-Mart is dooooomed! At least, the business model it relied on to reach such astronomical growth is now probably putting a choke hold on the company’s ability to grow and compete. [More]
Walmart Closing MP3 Store — Wait, Walmart Has An MP3 Store?
By 8.9.11
Back in 2003, when iPods didn’t make phone calls and people still bought music on something called Compact Discs, Walmart apparently launched an online MP3 download store to compete with Apple’s iTunes. And while Big W is the nation’s largest retailer, it failed at unseating King Apple from the throne. Thus, today it announced it would close the store for good later this month. [More]
Septuagenarian Walmart Greeter Chases Down Bike-Riding Shoplifter
By 8.9.11
Here’s a lesson to all would-be Walmart shoplifters out there. Just because that greeter is above the standard retirement age and looks like a kindly old grandpa, doesn’t mean he can’t chase you down — even if you’re trying to escape on a stolen bike. [More]
$300 Disappears From Pre-Paid Walmart Debit Card, Store Has No Idea Why
By 8.5.11
A California was stuck without car insurance and unable to pay her bills after $300 she’d put on her pre-paid Walmart debit card had vanished into the ether. Making matters worse, the retail giant has no idea how the money disappeared. [More]
Walmart.com Has Slowest Shipping, Costco.com Has Fastest
By 8.3.11
Two days before school starts and you need those pencils and TI-89 calculators, stat? If online shopping is the route you’re going, Costco will get it to you faster than Walmart, says a new survey. [More]
Ticketmaster Makes Deal With Walmart, Devil Confused As To Whose Soul To Collect First
By 8.2.11
Earlier today the nation’s largest retailer, Walmart, announced a deal with the nation’s least essential company, Ticketmaster, to sell overpriced tickets via in-store video screens at hundreds of Walmarts around the country. [More]
How Local Is That "Locally Grown" Produce At Your Grocery Store?
By 8.1.11
Last October, Walmart announced a pledge to double the amount of produce it purchases from local growers by 2015, with the three-pronged goal of saving on fuel costs, reducing spoilage and catering to a growing consumer appetite for local produce. But while Walmart defines “local” as grown and sold in the same state, your grocery store might have a different definition for the term. [More]
Bikini-Clad Walmart Shopper: I Was Booted From Store And Told I Was Violating Health Codes
By 7.28.11
A woman in Oregon says she’ll never shop at Walmart again after she was allegedly kicked out of the store for violating health codes by wearing a bikini top in the store. [More]
