WALMART

Inspired by Greg's blog about how much Walmart sucks, reminded me of an incident that happened to me a few years ago.

I was at my local Walmart purchasing season 4 of The Simpsons. While driving in the car, I ripped off the cellophane wrapping. When I got home, I went to add it to the DVD shelf. Oops! I'd already bought it! So now I had two of them. What to do? Simple enough. Just take it back.

Simple my ass!

I explained to the nice (snotty) girl at the service desk that I had bought it by mistake. I made up some sort of story about receiving it as a gift. But the girl wasn't having any of it. Since I'd opened the package, she refused to take it back under any circumstances. So I coyly asked her, "What if the DVD skips or something?" Then she said, "Yes, you could then exchange it."

So I devised a plan.

The next day, I took it back to the service desk. Thankfully a different woman was there. Actually, I had initially walked into the store to check on that first. Anyway, I told her that I'd just bought this, and that one of the DVD's skipped. She told me I could exchange it if I wanted to. I figured I'd get a new one, then return the new one (unopened) at a later date for a store credit.

So I gleefully walked to the electronics section and grabbed a new one. When I got back to the service desk, I was horrified to find that the girl from the day before was there. So I smugly said to her, "Would you believe there actually was a skip?" I think she was disgusted. Then she took the upper hand and handed me the new one - but not before ripping the cellophane off it yet again.

Denied!

Well, I can play this game forever. I decided to take it back the next day, claiming the same problem. At one point I thought I would go into the store at another time, and hide all of the season 4 Simpsons DVD's. If they didn't have a replacement, they'd have to give me a store credit, wouldn't they?

Well, the next day, the snotty girl wasn't working. So I returned the DVD to the woman at the service desk. She had me go get a replacement. And this time, the woman did not take off the cellophane wrapping. Woohoo!

A week later, we drove up to Manitowoc to spend the weekend with my parents. Earlier that day, I called the Walmart in Manitowoc and told them I'd received two Simpsons DVD's for my birthday. I asked if I could bring one of them in and exchange it for a store credit. They said I could, even though it had been purchased from a different Walmart. So that night, I got my store credit.

I won!

Now I had every intention of winning. It was the right thing to do. All I wanted was a store credit to begin with. Target will grant you that, no questions asked. But Walmart acted like a bitch. So I bitch-slapped them right back. Plus they now had to go through the bother of returning two seasons worth of DVD's for the alleged skipping problem.

Oh well. I sleep good at night.