I seriously despise Walmart (I feel they are monopolizing), and I hate that my financial situation forces me to shop there. I’m all for supporting small businesses, and I can find things I like at Target and Kroger, but Walmart is almost always cheaper than any competitor, big or small. Unfortunately, they are a soulless corporation and can afford to screw their customers over. Since we don’t have a car, I use Instacart, DoorDash, or Walmart to get groceries. Walmart is the cheapest, of course, as we have Walmart+, and there are no added fees like with Instacart+. A week or two ago, I was doing my thing and getting groceries and when I placed the order, it didn’t go through for some reason. I tried again and it told me I had insufficient funds to place the order, which would have been true if the order had actually gone through the first time but it hadn’t. I checked the bank, and there was my Walmart order amount pending, holding the only money I had for groceries.
I contact Walmart through the chat and tell them the problem. They tell me that the pre-auth (pending) amount will drop off in 7-10 days and I just need to reorder, but I don’t have the funds to do that. So, Adam gets involved because I’m flipping out, per usual, and he calls them. They tell him there was a glitch which is why my order didn’t go through, then tell him the same thing about reordering. He tells them we don’t have the money to reorder, and they tell him it’s on my bank’s end, not theirs, blah, blah, blah. He calls the bank, and they tell him it’s on the merchant’s side, not theirs. They even do a 3-way conference with Adam, Walmart, and the bank, and there’s nothing anyone can do. I read my bank’s policy on pre-authorizations, then contacted Walmart through chat again and asked them to remove the pre-auth, and the dude just leaves the chat!
Walmart can remove/cancel the pre-auth charges at their discretion, and I know this because Instacart and DoorDash do it all the time with my bank without issue. They authorize a certain amount in case substitutions cost more, a product is out of stock, or if something is weight-based. The final cost is reflected in the bank before the order even gets here on most occasions and if not then, always on the same day. Walmart is just a lying liar.
So, I’m shopping at Walmart yesterday, which is a chore in itself because I submit my order, then start thinking about finances and go back and remove stuff that we don’t really need. Then, I add stuff. Then, I remove stuff again. With Walmart’s crap policy and money handling, they tack on any additions as separate purchases and stack them up without subtracting the cost of items I remove (which I wasn’t aware of at the time). At the end of it all, I had around a $100 order and the pending charges/temporary hold were over $400. That is important information for my story. One item that I needed was a certain acid reducer, but it’s $23-something, so I chose the equate brand, which is $14-something (thus, why I shop at Walmart). Even the name-brand medicine was $5 to $7 cheaper at Walmart than the other stores around here. Order placed. No issue. Yay!
I go about my business and eventually get an email stating the equate acid reducer is unavailable, so they replaced it with the name brand, per my instructions. When I go to the site to approve these changes, I see they replaced my one 42-count box of equate with four 42-count boxes of the name brand, for a total of $96 for medicine! This does not raise any flags on their end because of that temporary hold being over $400, as mentioned above. I’m flipping out again because I’m very well versed in their policy by now and Gandi has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and I have no intention of spending $96 on medicine at the moment. Adam does his thing and talks to several people, one of whom says that they will fix it and we can keep “or donate” the three extra boxes that are going to be delivered for no charge. Obviously, I don’t believe them at all and know they will say anything to get the customer off the phone. There is no way Walmart would agree to doing what the customer service rep said would happen. That’s just losing them money.
I have a light bulb moment and go in the app and start a return so I can get refunded, hoping that would be quicker and more reliable than customer service’s word. I do the whole return process, choose that 3/4 items were missing since there is no choice that matches my circumstance, and that just brings up the message that I need to call Customer Care. I cancel, go through the process again and choose 3/4 items were damaged, and lo and behold, a $76 refund is issued and shows up as such in my bank app before I even close the Walmart app. I was pretty proud of myself for getting this taken care of, although I must admit I was shaking from anger and frustration while Adam was on the phone with different reps giving him the run-around.
Cari R Esta 