Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Walmart's Bungling Bundling

I recently made my first and last purchase ever on Walmart.com. After ordering a "bundled" product, I received several components of it, and then about 2 weeks ago I was sent a notice that the final part was "backordered" with no certain date of delivery. So, I didn't waste a lot of time tracking the delivery and instead waited for a signal from Walmart (which never came).

This morning I went back to track it at UPS and I discovered that three times within the last two weeks UPS--each time around 9:30 in the morning--had tried to deliver the final part. To their discredit, UPS sent the item back to Walmart yesterday without notification. Oh, their website says they snail-mailed me a postcard 7 days ago asking them to contact them. That post card will likely come in today or tomorrow's mail. Thanks, UPS!

This morning I wasted an hour of my time on the phone first with UPS, who told me that I would have to contact Walmart, and then with Walmart who basically told me that if UPS couldn't help then there was nothing that they could do. It was all BOHICA, but here is a transcript of the telling part of my debate with someone at Walmart's Mississippi Call Center:
Walmart (as the personification of the utter indifference of existence): "I'm sorry, sir, we can't redeliver the last component in the system because all of these deliveries come in a bundle."

Me (as the shit-out-of-luck consumer): "But the components were delivered to me separately; not in a bundle."

Walmart: "Your contract clearly states that the components will be delivered separately."

Me: "But I thought they were a bundle."

Walmart: "They are, which is why we can't redeliver once UPS returns for lack of delivery."

Me: "But my contract states that they may be delivered separately."

Walmart: "Not when they are in a bundle. We'll be giving you a refund."
I guess I should be thankful for the refund and ownership of some of the parts of a system that won't work without the final component.

1 comment:

  1. http://www.walmartmovie.com/
    Enough said.

    ReplyDelete