My (Least) Favorite Wal-martian

I don't know about you, but sometimes I dread going to Wal-mart. Yeah, I know: I don't HAVE to shop there... but sometimes I do. There; I admitted it. Happy now?

Anyway, one of things I do like about Wal-mart is they honor their competitors' advertised prices. Or at least they're supposed to.

In mid-June, we ventured into Wal-mart to buy two-liter bottles of Pepsi and have them price-match with a Safeway ad. The cashier was willing to do it, but wanted to make sure she keyed it in correctly because her till was set to be audited that night. Fair enough.

A supervisor of some sort came by and told her to enter a "1" for a competitors' price match... then snatched the Safeway ad and said, "Wait a minute." She trotted off with the ad, and a few minutes later returned to sniff that they don't honor competitors' price if they require a club card. I told her I had talked with a manager named Crystal about it earlier, and we had agreed that because the card is free for the asking, Wal-mart would match the price.

"She doesn't work here anymore so I can't verify that," she snapped, "but I just checked with an SCI (or something like that) and confirmed we do NOT honor these prices."

She oh-so-helpfully added that if I took the Safeway ad to Safeway, they would honor the price. Gee; ya think?

I argued it a little longer but she wouldn't budge, just kept saying, "We don't do that, we've NEVER done that"... so some poor sap had to return a cart full of two-liters to the shelf.

The next day, I checked Wal-mart's site and, lo and behold:

"We do honor 'Preferred Shopping Card' advertised prices. Must be like items, be advertised and require a competitor's shopping card, for the discount to apply." (Check walmartstores.com if you don't believe me.)

Now I was mad.

A few days later &mdash but when the Safeway ad was still valid &mdash I drove back to Wal-mart, Safeway ad and walmartstores.com policy in hand: partly to stock up on soda, partly to tell them they're wrong and don't know their own corporate policy. Should be fun, right?

I marched to the Customer Service desk. Two women straightened and moved closer together, then listened to what I just relayed. They apologized (and relaxed a little), and said Wal-mart DOES price match competitors' club card price. Then one asked:

"Do you remember her name?"

"Sorry," I said, "but she held a binder or a clipboard over her name badge so I didn't catch it."

As I said "name badge," the two exchanged a look.

"Do you remember what she looked like?" the other asked.

"She was maybe a little taller than I am, and she had long, straight brown hair."

"Tabitha," one said.

"Mmm-hmm," the other nodded.

"Straight hair?" one woman asked, just to make sure.

Yes, I said, but not wanting to get the wrong person in trouble, I added she was a thinner woman. (Well, thinner for a Wal-martian.)

"Tabitha," they said together.

Oh, Tabitha, Tabitha, Tabitha; I see a talking-to in your future. Based on the two women's reactions, I don't think it's the first time someone has complained about Tabitha so I didn't feel too bad.

And I especially don't today. My soda supply was down and Safeway had it on sale again, so once again I headed into the Land of the Wally Mammoths, Safeway ad and walmartstores.com policy in my pocket. Just in case. At the checkout, the cashier was again willing to make the price-match but wanted to make sure he entered it correctly.

Now who do you suppose toddled over?

Tabetha (it seems I'd been misspelling her name) was shaking her head as she approached. She didn't blink before spitting, "We don't do that," and turned to leave.

"Yes you do," I said in an equally snide tone, and slapped the policy statement down. Cary and the cashier backed up a step as Tabetha slowly turned back, presumably to see Who Dared Question the All-Knowing Tabetha.

She read the policy, and then read it again. Or she read incredibly slowly, I can't say which. What I DO know is she still tried to refuse the price-match, saying again &mdash though with less conviction &mdash that she was told they don't do that.

"You're supposed to," I said, and tapped the paper. The cashier bit back a giggle.

"It's not clear..." Tabetha protested.

Not clear? I thought. How much clearer could it be? "We DO HONOR 'Preferred Shopping Card' advertised prices." Seems pretty black-and-white to me.

"I guess just do it," she told the cashier and walked away in a confused haze. Smiling, the cashier finished wringing our order.

"Sorry about that," he said.

"Not your fault," I said. "For some reason, Tabetha just likes to argue that policy."

"Yeah, she's sort of a &mdash"

He stopped as Tabetha approached with another supervisor-type. They asked to see the policy again and slowly read it over. Supervisory-type Number 2 began the "We don't do that" speech.

I stopped her. I said I'd talked with two women in Customer Service; they said you price match. I'd talked with an assistant manager; she said you price match. Your own corporate site posts the policy, which is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, and it states you price match.

"It... It says it needs a shopping card for it to apply," Tabetha tried.

"Club Price," I said, as I poked the Safeway ad. "That means you need to have a Safeway Club Card. Which I do."

"So do I," Tabetha said.

"Well there you go."

They stood there, mouths open, unsure what to say. Tabetha mumbled something about checking walmartstores.com later, so I handed her the piece of paper and told her to keep it. For some reason that flustered her even more.

As we were leaving the store, I checked my receipt to make sure everything rang up correctly, and found a survey request.

"WE VALUE YOUR OPINION!" it yelled. "WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR SHOPPING EXPERIENCE TODAY AT WAL-MART."

Really.

You know what, Wally; I may just take you up on that.