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SCHOCKING NEWS: Walmart has changed their price match policy

IISANDERII

Member
Doesn't matter. In a business transaction, if one party is being knowingly dishonest to cheat the other party, there are grounds for fraud. There is absolutely a case here, but it's probably not worth pursuing legally due to costs.
You could recoup the costs with successful litigation. But if there were anything criminal then law enforcement gets involved, very little cost in that.
 
You could recoup the costs with successful litigation. But if there were anything criminal then law enforcement gets involved, very little cost in that.

Yeah, but you also have PR cost as in opportunity cost in lost sales if this becomes a thing where the media runs with "Walmart is suing its customers!"

No one wants that. Fix the policy, move on.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
I watched a video with screenshots of Wal-Mart receipts for $90 PS4s - using a printout from Amazon for a PM. I was generally shocked Wal-Mart even accepted that in the first place.

agreed. The couple times I've price matched at Target they actually have ipads at customer service that they will go to the matched site, search and pull up the product, and check for stock/availability.

edit - likewise best buy has a list of retailers that has to be selected at checkout that they will PM from.. if the retailer isn't on that list, no PM.
 
I am schocked.

Damn, someone beat me to my joke.

In all seriousness, not surprised that they're fixing this oversight. Cavalier is right though, in that if the prices are not being followed up on, then stuff like this or the Sears pricing mishap can continue.

Still scummy/fraudulent, regardless.
 

Deadstar

Member
We should be extremely grateful that price matching managed to stick around period.

Not really. Price matching helps Walmart not us. We have the option not to buy from Walmart. The price matching policy (if not abused) mainly benefited Walmart because they get your business.
 

egruntz

shelaughz
I'm surprised they didn't get rid of price matching altogether.

They won't ever do this. They'll adjust their price matching as needed to prevent abuse, but to remove it completely goes against their mission statement: "always low prices". One way they ensure they always have a low price is to match other (legitimate) low prices.

Not sad about the policy change. Only makes sense, and was only to be expected.
 
That isn't the argument he is making. The third party was "selling" a product they did not have for the express purpose of forcing walmart to price match. Hence the fraud.

Unless I missed it, the third party seller never said what their intent was for listing the PS4 at that price. So you're making a pretty big assumption that it was intended specifically to target Walmart.
 
Someone was probably smart enough to get away with it and also smart enough not to brag about it on Twitter.



That would be fraud on their part if a person bought the good from them on Amazon. It wouldn't be fraud for someone to pricematch it at Walmart. Walmart's legal team royally fucked up.

^ This. At least someone understands how fraud works.
 

SRTtoZ

Member
Walmart has had ridiculous policies in the past. I remember when you could walk into the store and return items for cash without a receipt.
 

mdubs

Banned
I'm surprised their price match policy wasn't already doing this. In Canada pretty much every retailer only price matches a select group of their competitors and things work just fine. (Doesn't stop the rfd scum from trying to hoard though anyways)
 

Jesus Carbomb

From Water into Guinness
Defense Force for fraud? Of course.

SleazyGAF gonna keep sleazin. Promo code exploits, price matching scams ... It's like watching the shit float to the top whenever these things come around. These bottom feeders gotta eat I guess.
 

ZeroCoin

Member
Do they still price match Sears?

Sears is included in the list. Here's the list of retailers from the official Walmart press release.

*Online retailers are limited to: Academy.com, Amazon.com, Autozone.com, Babiesrus.com, Basspro.com, Bedbathandbeyond.com, Bestbuy.com, Cabelas.com, Dickssportinggoods.com, Dollargeneral.com, Familydollar.com, Homedepot.com, Jcpenny.com, Kmart.com, Kohls.com, Lowes.com, Michaels.com, Newegg.com, Officedepot.com, Oreillyauto.com, Pepboys.com, Petco.com, Petsmart.com, Sears.com, SportsAuthority.com, Staples.com, Target.com, Tigerdirect.com, Toysrus.com, Walgreens.com, Walmart.com
 
Wait, their policy was to match 3rd party sellers? They basically invited this to happen if that's the case. Surprised no one thought of it sooner.
 

Rip

Member
Is walmart.com one of the major retailers that they price match now? Amazes me that this company doesn't pricematch their own damn online store.
 
Unless they intended to actually sell units at that price, it's pretty clear they were trying to defraud through price matching

That's not pretty clear, nor does it answer what I asked. The poster stated that the third party seller on Amazon did not have the PS4s to sell and only posted them with the intent to defraud Walmart.

Where has it been proven that they didn't actually have the PS4s to sell? Where does it state that they were specifically targeting Walmart? He's stating assumptions as facts. If anything, assuming the listing was fake, it would seem they were trying to target Amazon customers.
 

sonto340

Member
As long as they keep price matching at WalMart.com then I don't mind.
Had titanfall for $40 on store, and $25 online. I always check online before I buy in store now.
 

BadRamen

Member
Is walmart.com one of the major retailers that they price match now? Amazes me that this company doesn't pricematch their own damn online store.

Started to as of about two weeks ago, IIRC.

Me in the other thread:
The plus side is now they finally price match their own fucking website! Unbelievable they only now will be doing that!

Yeah, pretty silly that up until just recently they absolutely refused to price match their own website, as it was a separate entity or whatever they BSed to me. But they would do in store pickup and ship to store for the online price...
 
Doesn't matter. In a business transaction, if one party is being knowingly dishonest to cheat the other party, there are grounds for fraud. There is absolutely a case here, but it's probably not worth pursuing legally due to costs.

And that's quite hard to prove in most cases and long the person took a minimal amount of care (like not posting about it on internet forums).
 
Man, I couldn't even get them to price match third party market sellers before so I don't even know how this will effect me.

Then again I have pretty shitty luck.
 
Wow, I always thought the policy was for major retailers before. Never new they PM'd 3rd party and what not.

What a dumb policy. All the other big guys always only matched other big companies and not marketplace vendors.
 
I'm surprised they didn't already have a policy like this in place, when I worked retail (albeit not at Walmart) we were aware of the major retailers we could price match, everything else was either denied or had to go through a manager for approval. At no point would a third party seller on Amazon EVER be allowed to be pricematched.

usually it isn't. A stupid manager allows it though.
 
Should've been the policy to begin with. I wish I could've gotten a cheap PS4. I'd only take advantage of something like Wal-Mart, the bastards.
 
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