I hate the mart

Some couponers love the mart aka Walmart because of the overages they can achieve. I'm not really big into overages as I think they encourage coupon fraud and misuse and the purchase of 100's of unneeded items.

I've never found it to be anything other than a dirty place to go people watching the downside being that you feel like you need to scrub yourself clean to make sure you don't come out feeling like you contracted scabies. I understand that the non LA stores are nice and have nice people that work there.

Here is my letter as sent to Walmart corporate let's see if they reply. (Unlikely)




I have just returned from an very unpleasant experience at Walmart [Transaction and store details removed to protect the guilty]. As you know in Los Angeles we have a lot of choices for shopping and one can live in LA for years without ever needing to shop at Walmart. Which is why I don't understand why customer service is so bad.

I came to Walmart today specifically to buy All You Magazine so while there I decided to price match some shaving cream I intended to purchase elsewhere using my coupons. I printed out a copy of your price matching policy and your coupon policy and reviewed it and made sure everything I was trying to do was within the policy. It was as my transaction was straight forward.

I easily found the products I was looking for and put them into my cart making sure they were both the same as the ad I was trying to match and the same as on the coupons. They were. I pulled up to the checkstand and was hearted by the sign that said Ad Matching welcome and Coupons? No problem.

Not no problem. BIG PROBLEM.

Now I should point out 2 things I was only purchasing two kinds of items. The magazine and 9 shaving creams. I let the cashier [EDIT] know I was price matching before she started ringing the order up. She had some trouble ringing the order up but managed to ring everything up correctly. I then handed her my coupons. She read over the coupons to read the details and then immediately pointed out something that makes most coupon users pull out their hair. "It's says only one per purchase you can only use one" I pointed out the purchase is synonymous with item and that it doesn't mean one per transaction as a transaction is made up of multiple purchases. I also showed her the coupon policy which I have come to the conclusion none of your employees at this location have ever seen.

A "supervisor" was then called over [ELIZABETH] who then insinuated that my coupons were photocopies. I happily pointed out that they all had unique barcodes on them and pointed out the security features that would void an internet printable coupon if photocopied. After that she told me I couldn't price match AND used coupons.

I pulled out both the price matching and coupon policies and asked her where it stated that. She then grabbed my policies and flounced off to the managers office. She came back a few minutes later shoved my policies back in my hand, said "It's OK" over her shoulder and ran off.

Now this is not the level of customer service I expect from any store I spend money at. Low prices should not mean low customer service. Especially when the prices aren't low otherwise price matching wouldn't be necessary.

I always thought Walmart's slogan was "Save Money. Live Better." in fact its "The customer is always wrong. Spend your money elsewhere."


So in summary here's a list of the problems I had.

Cashier didn't know how to ring up price matching or just not proficient.
Told that purchase = transaction.
Accused of photocopying my coupons
Told I couldn't price match and used coupons.
Basically treated like shit even though I was polite.