I thought I would get over my anger, but you know what, days later, I’m still angry. Why? Because the Kid had to go to school with handfuls of nothing because Walmart’s Pick it up Today program is garbage.
School started Aug 31. Knowing that I didn’t want to have to push and shove my way through crowds of people all trying to get supplies for their kids, I had the bright idea of using money from Paypal and buying things online. Which led me to Walmart.com.
I’ve attempted to shop at Walmart.com before and it didn’t go well. (I had a cartful of stuff carefully curated over an hour of browsing, but when I clicked to checkout, everything in my cart disappeared.) I should have taken it as a sign that I wasn’t meant to shop at Walmart.com, especially considering how jank their site is. Seriously, their listings are nonsense, their pages take a ridiculous amount of time to load, and the UI is infuriating, like a step back in time to when the Internet sucked.
Anyways, I thought I’d give them another chance. More fool me.
I picked out a bunch of stuff with the expectation that I could get things delivered to my door. Instead, I was notified that only part of my order could be delivered, everything else would be gathered up waiting for me at Customer Service as part of the Pick it up Today program.
Considering I didn’t want to have to go to Walmart to pick up anything, I still put in the order and was told my Pick it up Today stuff would be ready by 10 am Aug 26. Plenty of time before school.
And I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited.
Meanwhile, packages are coming in the mail and we’re getting stuff, just not an email saying to come pick up the rest of the school supplies. Finally on the 30th I see on the website that my Pick it up Today stuff was still processing. So I called Walmart.
The local Walmart told me that there was nothing on their computer saying to put my order together. And without an order, they couldn’t do anything for me. Here’s the number to the guys running Walmart.com.
So I call Walmart.com, where I’m transferred to a supervisor and expect that my difficulties will be handled. Instead, I’m told that Walmart.com has nothing to do with my order once it’s placed, all Pick it up Today things are handled by the store. Oh, and by the way, “I can cancel the order for you and put in for a refund. That’s all I can do. It will take 5-10 days before processing.”
At that point, I was really angry. And even though I wanted to yell at the woman on the other end of the phone, I didn’t. Though I did say, “I feel so angry and disappointed right now. I feel like I might want to Tweet about your company’s horrible customer service, and post things on Tumblr” and whatever. I was mad.
But here I am. Days later, and I’m still angry and frustrated.
Why?
Because instead of soothing an angry customer and helping them get the things THEY PAID FOR, I was told by the Walmart.com rep that the only things I could do was cancel the order and request a refund, or call the local Walmart and talk to a manager.
And when I called the local Walmart and asked to speak to a manager? I was left on hold for 15 minutes with no hold music, after being on the phone for OVER AN HOUR begging someone to give me my stuff.
So I canceled the rest of the order myself and drove to Walmart to scavenge through the wreckage in search of school supplies. On the night before school starts.
And what do I find? They were out of graph paper, which was part of my order.
And I can’t help thinking that rather than tell me they couldn’t fulfill my entire order and giving me a partial refund, Walmart instead went “Pft, she won’t want the rest of this stuff without that graph paper. We won’t bother to tell her we’re screwing her over.”
But whatever excuse they have, they boned me.
Because of Walmart.com’s terrible customer service and lack of ability to do ANYTHING to fix the problem, the Kid had to go to school without some supplies. And once again, I’m the one that didn’t come through for him. Once again, I’m the disappointment that couldn’t get him the things he needed to have a good first day of school.
And that’s on me. Because I ignored my instincts and ordered from Walmart.com. Something I will never do again.