Walmart Rumble

I almost had a throwdown in Walmart last night.

No joke.


We stopped in to peruse the Easter Candy sales (50% off! WOOT WOOT! There is still a very good assortment too). We bought a few little things, then headed to the grocery section to use up some coupons. I had one for a free package of the new JELLO Temptations cups, one for a free Glade product that I won from the Right at Home giveaways and then I had 2 coupons for $2.00 off ANY size ketchup.

Since ketchup keeps forever, I got one HUMUNGOUS ketchup container priced at $1.98 and a much, much smaller one for $1.76. Inside, I was dancing a little. It's called the overage dance and no I will not show it to you.

We get to the checkout and put our items up and the lady behind the counter looks at my $2.00 off coupons (at the end of scanning our items) and immediately cops an attitude.

"Neither of these ketchups even costs $2.00".
"Yeah, I know." (This is me. Can't you tell by the irritation in my voice?)

She hems and haws a bit and reads, then rereads the coupons. I offer to whip out the handy dandy Walmart Coupon Policy, where it very clearly states that coupons may exceed the value of an item and in that case, overage is to be given either towards the basket price or in the form of cash back. We're quibbling here about 2 free bottles of ketchup and approximately enough spare change to pay the tax on them. No joke.

So, she declines to look at the policy I try to hand her and waddles off to find a manager. The people in line behind me are having hysterics and I rolled my eyes and sighed- right about the time she turns around to look at me. Nice.

Big shocker, the manager tells her the coupon policy and she has to give me my overage. I know this, because as she walks back towards me, she has a look on her face like someone just slapped her.

I guess my overage comes out of her pocket...bah.

So she stands in front of us and theatrically reads the coupons again, then puts them through, muttering to herself the whole time. Imagine my face at this point. Go ahead- imagine it.

This is why it's important to be willing to stand your ground and to carry a copy of the coupon policy if you're going to use high value coupons. Walmart gets the $2.00 face value back, plus 8 cents PER COUPON for handling. So... when I get my $4.00 off, Walmart gets paid $4.16. When they cheat me out of my extra cents, in this case all 26 pennies of it, they get paid $4.16 when they only "paid" out $3.76. Don't even get me started on mark up!

Stand your ground. As long as you aren't trying to run a scam, YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT. A policy is a policy, no one forces them to honor coupons and don't let a surly or lazy cashier push you out of money. Imagine if they cheat 100 people out of 26 cents a day. That's $26 a day. If they do that every single day- that's $9490.

-Kristen