The nice thing about the supermarket is that they have these large, rolling vessels available to use for free, so shoppers can fill them with items and not have to carry all those groceries. They’re called shopping carts, and unless there’s some special occasion where a store is flooded with shoppers, there are usually quite a few of them available. So punching a fellow shopper in the face over shopping cart rage? That doesn’t need to happen. [More]
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Report: Walmart & Kroger Among Top Bidders For Hostess Assets
By 12.14.12
A Twinkie here, a Ho Ho there — with bidders reportedly lining up to gobble Hostess’ assets, the brand’s snacks could be split up among some big name brands. Walmart and Kroger are said to be in the scrum of companies waiting to bid on the bits and pieces that remain of Hostess during its liquidation sale. [More]
Walmart Shoplifter Dies After Being Shot By Off-Duty Deputy
By 12.7.12
An off-duty sheriff’s deputy, working in uniform as a security officer for a Texas Walmart, reportedly shot an alleged shoplifter after being dragged by her car in the store’s parking lot. [More]
Hitting Up The Same Walmart Three Times To Shoplift Goes Poorly For Woman
By 12.6.12
Let’s be clear: The old adages “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” or “Third time’s the charm!” should not be applicable in shoplifting situations, or any kind of crime for that matter. But police in Texas say one woman’s failure to make it out of a local Walmart with purloined goods twice before didn’t prevent her from trying a third time. [More]
Walmart Lists “Sending Someone Money” As A Reason You Shouldn’t Wire Money To Someone
By 12.5.12
A lot of international fraud scams involve having to wire money to the scammers, and they’ve become so commonplace that operators of wire services like Western Union train employees to keep an eye out for red flags indicating a possible scam might be occurring. But we think this warning sign from Walmart and MoneyGram might be a little too over-cautious. [More]
Study: There Are Plenty Of People Who Would Take Out A Walmart Or PayPal Mortgage
By 12.4.12
What’s an average citizen to do when getting a mortgage from a big bank or other financial institution isn’t an option? Perhaps you might consider taking out mortgages from a retailer like Walmart, or even PayPal? A new financial services study says there are plenty of people out there who would be down with a situation like that. [More]
Item Is Right On The Walmart Shelf, But Site-To-Store Will Take A Few Days
By 12.3.12 — Updated: 9.18.14
Retailers generally don’t price-match their own websites. Walmart, Sears, Best Buy, Gap, Home Depot… they’re separate operations. Lee didn’t know that, though, and tried to get Walmart to match its online price for the router he wanted. They refused. That’s not worthy of publication on Consumerist, but what happened next is. He whipped out a smartphone and ordered the router sitting on the shelf in front of him for in-store pickup. Hurray! He beat the system! Until an e-mail from Walmart arrived telling him that he could expect to pick up his new router sometime next week. [More]
New Survey Shows Why Amazon Has Bricks-And-Mortar Retailers Worried
By 11.30.12
Many bricks-and-mortar retailers claim Amazon has an unfair advantage because it is not — in most states — yet required to collect sales tax on purchases, or that Amazon can offer huge discounts because it doesn’t have the overhead associated with running a retail store. But a new survey shows that people might just like Amazon more than other retailers. [More]
Do Different Walmarts Charge The Same Price For The Same Item?
By 11.27.12
Have you ever wondered whether different Walmart stores in the same area charge the same price for the same items? Perhaps you did, but never got around to doing the legwork to find out whether that’s actually the case. Fortunately, Rob Cockerham is here, and has a lot of free time. Evidently. He did the experiment that I’ve always wanted to do, driving around to three different Walmarts around Sacramento on the same day to compare the prices of identical items. The results? Don’t waste your time driving around to different Walmarts for groceries. Unless you live in Rancho Cordova and need to buy an awful lot of chicken breasts.
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Raiders Of The Lost Walmart Uncover Ancient, Indestructible Nokia Phone
By 11.26.12 — Updated: 10.9.13
Do you ever get nostalgic for old technology, missing your Nokia dumbphone from 2001 or your Sony Mavica camera that saved photos to 3.5-inch floppy disks? Thanks to hidden caches of treasure in Walmart’s vast warehouses, you don’t have to. Wally World puts these items, brand-new and shrinkwrapped, on the shelves at comically high prices. Brave Consumerist readers seek out these rare finds and send their discoveries to us. We call these brave souls the Raiders of the Lost Walmart. [More]
Walmart Offers Rain Checks, Doesn’t Know How To Give Them To Customers
By 11.26.12
In theory, if Walmart doesn’t have a sale item in stock when you’re at the store, they offer rain checks. Here in the real world, no one at David’s local store seems to know what a rain check is, let alone how to issue one. A rain check is a document that allows you to get the sale price on an out-of-stock item, even if the sale is over when the item comes back in stock. Apparently, it’s a relic of the era when customers couldn’t just whip out a smartphone and order the same item elsewhere at a cheaper price. That’s precisely what David did, anyway. [More]
Alleged Shoplifter Dies After Being Tackled By Walmart Employees Over Holiday Weekend
By 11.26.12
Every year shoppers get amped up to shop the Black Friday sales, and it seems that every year, that energy unfortunately leads to a few tragic situations. Early on Sunday morning, a man who cops say was trying to shoplift two DVD players from a Walmart in Georgia died after he was apprehended by two employees and a contract security officer. [More]
Sam’s Club Offers Great Thanksgiving Week Deals, Abruptly Cancels Orders
By 11.26.12
Is Sam’s Club the new Best Buy? Last year, Best Buy canceled orders for many of their hottest doorbusters just before Christmas, leaving customers sad and giftless. If that’s Sam’s Club’s plan, at least they’re operating on a shorter timeline before canceling their hottest deals. Readers report to us that Sam’s sold and then canceled these deals all in the space of Thanksgiving weekend. [More]
Survey: Target Beats Walmart For Cheaper Thanksgiving Dinner
By 11.20.12
Over the past decade, Walmart has quickly become the biggest seller of groceries in the country, but that doesn’t mean it’s the cheapest. In fact, a new survey says that shoppers would save money this year by hitting up Target for their Thanksgiving feast. [More]
3 Reasons Why 350,000 Signatures On A Petition Won’t Change Target’s Mind About Opening On Thanksgiving
By 11.19.12
For the second year in a row, a Target employee has managed to secure hundreds of thousands of names on a petition asking Target to rethink its plans to start its Black Friday sale on Thanksgiving night. And for the second year in a row, Target is politely declining the suggestion and moving ahead as planned. [More]
Walmart Files Complaint Against Union In Attempt To Thwart Black Friday Protests
By 11.19.12
Walmart seems to be feeling a bit squirmy about the upcoming Black Friday sales at its stores in light of workers’ plans to protest at over 1,000 stores nationwide, and has filed a complaint against a union it says is involving itself in the brouhaha even though it’s not the workers’ official union. Black Friday is The Main Event as far as the company is concerned, and it doesn’t want any strikes or picket lines to muck things up. [More]
Couponing, Interrupted: Front-Line Employees Speak Out About Kroger Spider-Man Promotion
By 11.15.12
Earlier this week, we shared Sarah’s story about her failed attempt to get a free bag of Pirate’s Booty from a coupon provided at Safeway. The top half of this sheet advertised the DVD of the new “Spider-Man” reboot; the bottom had two separate coupons. One coupon (for batteries) specified that the customer had to buy the DVD in large letters. The other (for Pirate’s Booty snack food) didn’t. Sarah says that she tore off this coupon and went to claim her four ounces of cheesy goodness. That’s when things went horribly wrong, The cashier refused to take the coupon, acted like Sarah was trying to run a scam, and–worst of all–mocked Sarah when the cashier thought that she had left the store. She hadn’t. She was standing right nearby. [More]
Man Mad At Walmart Because He Doesn’t Actually Want A $480 Fake iPad
By 11.14.12
Even if you’re not buying iPads in gas stations (either in Texas or Florida, or anywhere else for that matter), customers are finding out there are duds popping up in the places you’d least expect. A man in Miami says he recently bought an iPad from Walmart ended up with a $480 piece of plastic that does absolutely nothing and is in fact, not an iPad. [More]
