Walmart's Black Friday Rip-off

[Night Hawk]

November 27, 2009 5:53 PM

Walmart's Black Friday Rip-off

Customers arrived at 5 a.m. to find $198 laptops had all been assigned the day before to people who called the store, never mentioned in ads.
David Coursey

TRACY, CA -- Black Friday customers who arrived at the Walmart store here, expecting to purchase an e-Machines laptop for the $198 Black Friday price were surprised to find the entire shipment of 37 units had been assigned to other customers the day before.

A store manager admitted that the only way for a customer to know that tickets allowing later purchase of the machines were being distributed early would have been to call the store and

Such tickets are used by other stores--such as Best Buy--but were not mentioned in Walmart's Black Friday advertising, which only said the laptops would be on sale from 5 a.m. until 10 a.m.

"That really sucks," said one unhappy customer when he learned he could not purchase a laptop, despite at the store at 5 a.m. when the sale was supposed to start "How was I supposed to know to call?"

The Walmart manager, named Mark, said other tech products had been pre-sold in the same way as well, but did not elaborate.

More at: Walmart's Black Friday Rip-off - Business Center - PC World Business Center

 

[Lordbob75]

Oh this is going to end well.

~Lordbob

 

[Jacee]

An oops moment? ... :sarc:

 

[Night Hawk]

A falling out for WallyWorld to say the least! You can be sure there'll be plenty of My Space, Twitter, FaceBook, and other places where some people are going to be letting off some steam!

 

[pparks1]

Oh well, it's Walmart. Even though they have notorious dispicable business practices...people are still going to shop there. I'd love to see them go down in flames, I hate Walmart with a passion.

 

[Zidane24]

Nice going Wal-Mart...

Just goes to show how quick they want to make a buck...

...but really...Black Friday is SUPPOSED TO BE JUST THAT FRIDAY

 

[thefabe]

Walmart enough said. As far as I'm coverned. another nice find N.H.

 

[whs]

In our local Walmart they actually sold them to the early birds. Unfortunately I was a few minutes too late and could just see the tail end of them. Wanted one for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Now she has to settle for a set of pots - LOL.
In Tampa they reported 2 guys that had set up camp in front of Walmart 8 days before black Friday - with tent, air mattresses and the whole 9 yards. And all of that for some large TVs. Pretty crazy.

 

[Zidane24]

In our local Walmart they actually sold them to the early birds. Unfortunately I was a few minutes too late and could just see the tail end of them. Wanted one for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Now she has to settle for a set of pots - LOL.
In Tampa they reported 2 guys that had set up camp in front of Walmart 8 days before black Friday - with tent, air mattresses and the whole 9 yards. And all of that for some large TVs. Pretty crazy.

I camped out for 36 hours at my local Wal-Mart for the Wii lanuch...all of my friends did

It was an amazing experience...I loved it!

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

In our local Walmart they actually sold them to the early birds. Unfortunately I was a few minutes too late and could just see the tail end of them. Wanted one for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Now she has to settle for a set of pots - LOL.
In Tampa they reported 2 guys that had set up camp in front of Walmart 8 days before black Friday - with tent, air mattresses and the whole 9 yards. And all of that for some large TVs. Pretty crazy.

I camped out for 36 hours at my local Wal-Mart for the Wii lanuch...all of my friends did

It was an amazing experience...I loved it!

Wii's make me sick, sorry.

I love Walmart for groceries or not-so-techy things. But when it comes to electronics I generally would go to bestbuy. At least I got reward-zone there. Don't get my wrong, walmart is a great place, just not for me when it comes to things like electronics.

 

[Zidane24]

In our local Walmart they actually sold them to the early birds. Unfortunately I was a few minutes too late and could just see the tail end of them. Wanted one for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Now she has to settle for a set of pots - LOL.
In Tampa they reported 2 guys that had set up camp in front of Walmart 8 days before black Friday - with tent, air mattresses and the whole 9 yards. And all of that for some large TVs. Pretty crazy.

I camped out for 36 hours at my local Wal-Mart for the Wii lanuch...all of my friends did

It was an amazing experience...I loved it!

Wii's make me sick, sorry.

I love Walmart for groceries or not-so-techy things. But when it comes to electronics I generally would go to bestbuy. At least I got reward-zone there. Don't get my wrong, walmart is a great place, just not for me when it comes to things like electronics.

Same here...I am quite dis-content for how my Wii experience has matured...

That doesn't discredit my camping experience...I would do it over again even with the future knowledge on how the Wii is...

 

[Night Hawk]

I think that's going a little overboard just to catch any sale. The problem when all the laptops or other electronic items marked down are sold out and you get a lemmon and need to exchange or return it... oops! "Sorry we can refund but not exchange it. We only had this many instock!"

Another thing Walmart is noted for is never restocking certain items once the few they have on display are sold! I've run into that one at different stores quite often! They buy some much at volume and once gone that's it! Yet they pushed other retail chains out that would normally have a regular inventory of products maintained.

 

[whs]

Camping out for 36 hours in NC must be tough this time of the year - shiver, shiver.

 

[Zidane24]

Camping out for 36 hours in NC must be tough this time of the year - shiver, shiver.

You better believe it...this year is nice and warm right now...in 2006, Nov. 22 it was 5 degrees outside

They took a photo of the ones who bought the Wii...My face was so cold I couldn't even smile for the camera...

 

[Night Hawk]

Try having windows open up in the Northeast when previous years saw a foot of snow! That's something for an entirely new thread by itself!

 

[Zidane24]

Try having windows open up in the Northeast when previous years saw a foot of snow! That's something for an entirely new thread by itself!

Last time I seen snow like that was in 1993...had a blizzard come here and I was only a runt (4 years old)

I remember sliding off our porch (I ran outside the moment I got a chance...I loved snow) and ended up in a crater that had my outline...I also remember making tunnels under the snow so I could make it to the mailbox and my treehouse

The snow didn't melt for a month...one of the best times of my life

 

[Night Hawk]

It's been unusual to say the least when you see the summer months rained out with only a few short hot weeks and then irregular warmups like the one seen back in what 1994 of 95F in NY in January! Someone took a July, August day and stuck in the winter!

 

[Uber Philf]

Wish i was American, to experience this anger, and to unleash it , but that seriously sucks for people lining up.

 

[pacinitaly]

worst company in the world.


Wake-Up Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart Workers Speak Out

Up Against Wal-Mart | Mother Jones

 

[whs]

worst company in the world.


Wake-Up Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart Workers Speak Out

Up Against Wal-Mart | Mother Jones

The problem is systemic. As long as there is no legislation to protect the employee, they are not going to change. In Germany, Walmart opened a lot of shops. But they had to deal with the local laws and the unions. They lost millions year after year and folded tent after 7 years. Their system and the German system were incompatible.