Wednesday, May 16, 2007

I shop at Wal-Mart; I'm too dumb to read

If you buy a TWO YEAR SERVICE PLAN - you are not buying the right to return your product to a Wal-Mart store for two year. What part of "service plan" do you not understand? Do you really think Wal-Mart would guarantee that cheap Chinese (and Korean) junk for two years? It's a fancy name for warranty - broken into two words for the Wal-Mart shoppers of the world.

A two year SERVICE PLAN is a period during which Wal-Mart will repair your damaged item. If you read the brochure that came with the plan, called the 1-800 number or visited the Web site in between visits to howtogetonjerryspringer.com, you might know that.

When you come up to my counter with a trashed out digital camera that looks like you thew it at your son's head and claim "I don't know what happened?" but show me a receipt from February - I KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN.

1. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but I can't return that camera for you."
2. You're going to completely lose your cool and act like the world owes you a favor.

3. I'm going to repeat what I just said, but this time, I'm going to pray for a hot stick to gouge out my eyeballs.
4. You're going to continue acting like female dog, just louder.

5. I'm going to take the Service Plan brochure from you and SHOW YOU EXACTLY where the 1-800 number is, where the Web site it, and where it tells you how to get service.
6. You're going to pull a classic move out of the irate customer book by slapping the counter, and say "You better get a damn manager over here right because I need a f****** camera tonight."

7. I'm going to go "Certainly, ma'am" in a tone of voice that would frost the rims of glasses and chill martinis in three ZIP codes. I walk over to the phone and page for Customer Assistance to the Service Desk. I also pray for an small, white-hot meteorite to burst through the ceiling and put you out of your misery.
8. You smirk at me, sure that you've gotten what you want.

9. A manager comes. You wave your hand at me when I begin to explain the situation.
10. The manager politely repeats everything I just said and asks why you purchased a service plan if you didn't intend to use it?

11. You answer "I thought that meant I could return it for two years."
12. "No, ma'am. That means it can be repaired or replaced with a refurbished model. But that doesn't mean you can return it to stores. If you had read the brochure, you'd know that."

13. The manager and the camera woman go back to the Photo Lab to discuss sending the camera out for repair. They don't come back and that $300 camera doesn't get returned.

7 comments:

Bezzmer said...

I'm completely surprised that the manager just didn't approve the return for the camera. At the store where I work, the managers (store manager included) have been approving cash back returns on bikes left and right, and recently returned a dead tree from last April without a receipt.

Library Rat said...

You forget step #14!

It gets posted here, and the rest of humanity gets a chance to laugh at your asshattery.

DS said...

#14 You say that you're never going to shop at (this) Walmart again!!!1!one!!

#15 You'll be back tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

Places like Circuit City their plan replaces item so people assume WalMart does the same and you know what they say when someone assumes.......

Heidi said...

Omigod, I'm a genius...

Wal-Mart and other stores should start selling "return warranties" witn their items. Customers would buy these return warranties so they could return things after 90 days or without receipts!

Oh, wait...I guess they do that now and sometimes get away with it, depending on the manager's mood or how much they scream and whine!

Anonymous said...

Exactly Heidi,

I've had people tell me that they don't need to purhase the warranty because they can bring stuff back whenever they want.

They've been trained too well

Anonymous said...

Been there, done that!! I work at a photo lab in an Eckerd drugstore, and deal with this crap all the time. Sure isn't fun at all.