Arguing with Walmart

Some people don't like Walmart. We do. On an overall basis, we have found they have the lowest prices, and to us that's all that matters. And they have a policy that they will price match advertised sale products from other stores. This means we do virtually all our grocery shopping at Walmart.

Yesterday morning it was raining (again!) so we did our weekly run into the city. Starting now, and for the next two months or so we won't be able to go together because it will simply be too busy here at the campground.

So what we do to maximize our grocery purchasing power is we check the store flyers online before we go. Then, we stop in at the stores who have sale items we're interested in, and Ruth just runs in and grabs their paper flyer. It's no extra trouble because all of the major grocery stores are close to Walmart anyhow.

Then we head to Walmart and do our shopping. the problem always occurs when we get to the checkout. Always. Every single time, the checkout person doesn't know how to do a price match on the register and they have to call a supervisor. This time, one store had their "store brand" eggs on sale for $2.29. Walmart's store brand eggs were $2.78 so they had to credit back 49 cents each, or 98 cents for the two dozen we were buying. But when the supervisor came over, she said they wouldn't price match because they don't sell that brand.

But, I argued, they have done price matches on store brand butter and eggs before for us. Oh, she says then they made a mistake. I argued that their policy is written so that it says "identical product", it doesn't say anything about "identical brands".

But she was adamant. So I told them to process the eggs at regular price and I would follow up at customer service. So we did.

I had all three girls at customer service telling me that they would not price match that item. One of them was pretty rude about it and the discussion got pretty heated, but I was sure I was right. At one point, she actually looked over at another customer and said "I hate customers like this". Can you imagine? I asked to get the store manager involved.

So one of the girls stomped off to get him. She was gone about ten minutes and came back saying he was out of the building (yah, right...) but that she had made some phone calls and sure enough, I was right! She was so apologetic.

Apparently, the managers knew about this, but the supervisors had never been told. She blabbered on about this for a while and now all three were profusely apologizing. Especially the one who had been rude. Not very good for someone in customer service! Anyhow, they WILL price match on store brand products, including any of Walmart's "Great Value" brand in comparison to another chains home brand.

Chalk one up for the good guys! I know, most of you think I'm nuts for arguing and going through all of that for a buck. But it's the point of it, and for those of us who are frugal will think it was well worth it.

We had a very interesting storm roll through here yesterday evening. The pictures tell the story...

You could watch it turn darker!

The sky looked black.

Those are some dark clouds!

And then there was lightening and thunder and buckets of rain for about 20 minutes.

And then it moved off as quickly as it had come.

It was a weird storm!