On Sunday, 9/7/08 I went to the sporting goods section of a local Wal-Mart for some range ammunition. I requested one box of. 38, one of. 357 Magnum, and one of. 22 from the clerk, who grabbed three boxes from behind the cash register (customers can't select ammo themselves), rang them up along with a few other items I had in the shopping cart, and sent me on my way.
When I arrived at the range about an hour later, I opened the bag and found that one of the three boxes of ammo was not the one I had requested or been told I was given. The ". 357" ammo was actually. 357 Sig, an incompatible caliber, so I used up the other two boxes, and took the. 357 box to the nearest Wal-Mart on the way home, which was in Lexington, NC. There I was told that firearms and ammo are generally not returnable, but that in this particular case, where the error was clearly made by the clerk rather than me, the ammo could be returned to the same physical store where I had purchased it. So I left the Lexington store and attempted to get the Winston-Salem store on the phone, twice, only to get no answer from Customer Service either time.
The following day, Monday, 9/8, I showed up at the Winston-Salem store with the inappropriate ammo and my receipt in hand. This time I was told, first by the clerk and then by an assistant manager, that all ammo sales were final, no exceptions. I said that this was not acceptable since I hadn't been given the ammo I was told I was given. He said he was "sorry" for the error, but apparently not sorry enough to actually do anything about it.in effect, it was somehow *my* fault that his employee didn't know what he was doing.
Shortly thereafter, I filed a complaint with Wal-Mart online.in response, another assistant manager called me on Thursday, 9/11, wasted my time by having me recite the facts he already knew about, and lectured me about how it was my problem that his employee had screwed up and given me something other than what I had requested (and other than what he had told me I was getting). He cited some non-existent OSHA regulation that supposedly prohibits him from taking back ammo, and a corporate policy of screwing over all customers who purchase firearms or ammunition and are not given the product they requested. I informed him that no OSHA regulation prohibits any business from owning its own mistakes rather than leaving customers holding the bag. He responded that the law left him "free" to refuse to take back ammo he had erroneously supplied. I informed him that just because the law allows a company to act like unreasonable jerks doesn't mean it's OK to act like unreasonable jerks. He then became indignant over my use of the term "jerk" to describe a company who sells people Product X, gives them Product Y, and then refuses to correct their error, and hung up on me.
Enjoy your ill-gotten $23.97, Wal-Mart. Don't spend it all in one place, as it's the last $23.97 you're getting from me.
0 comments