If you've written a bad check at Wal-Mart, do not expect to be able to return merchandise. Donna Talarico became irate and embarrassed when WM wouldn't accept a smelly coat return because she floated a bad check in 1997:
I headed off to my nearest Wal-Mart, 40 minutes from my rural home. After waiting patiently in the customer service line, I joked, �Bet you can guess why I am here from the stench!� The woman responded, �My dear, eew, what is that?� and made another woman smell it too. She asked for my ID, proceeded with the return procedure and then gazed up at me. �I�m sorry, ma�am, we cannot take this back. You have a bad check with Wal-Mart, you have to call this customer service number.�She thinks WM is greedy because she wrote a bad check!This was a huge embarrassment. In a day of debit cards, I have not written checks in years for in-store purchases. I did not remember having a bounced check at Wal-Mart. At this point, getting the $10.88 back was not important. I felt like they were making me out to be some scumbag looking to get money. It�s not like I was doing something illegal, like stealing a DVD player and then trying to get store credit. For cripes sake, they had a stinky coat in their hands they smelled with their own snouts. I paid money for a product I was not going to use, and had a right to get it back. I told them to keep it, or donate it to someone. Can you believe they would not even let me GIVE it back? She said I owed Wal-Mart money, I couldn�t return an item, and handed me back the coat. I threw it in the trashcan in the customer service department to prove a point- I did not care about the money; I just wanted rid of coat, and figured there was something else I could buy with the measly $10.88. They shook their heads, probably thought I was being difficult. But, I wasn�t going to keep the �stinkin� thing.
On the way home, I called the customer service line to inquire- closed for the weekend. I did call this morning, Monday, and found that I had a bounced check in 1997- when I was a sophomore in college, my first year in my own apartment, and with my own checkbook. Ooops. I was eighteen and made a mistake. The amount? About $20.00. I am sure I was charged a fee from my bank at the time, and almost a decade later, I am sure that $20.00 was written off as a loss for the Waltons. The past came back to haunt me- one bounced check at a discount chain eight years ago. I am not a teenager anymore, but a young professional with a career, a house, and the means to buy a real leather coat.
Posted by Kevin on November, 13 2004 at 02:01 PM
