My Boycott of Wal-Mart

Monday, January 19 2004 @ 12:49 AM MST

Wal-Mart has many problems, but the latest news has made me swear off shopping there.

I've shopped at Wal-Mart for many years. A quick search of my Quicken file indicates I've spent $29,777.49 at Wal-Mart since 1989. (Actually I've probably spent more. That number doesn't include some cash transactions.) Recently the service provided by Wal-Mart has deteriorated significantly. I will outline them below, but first I'd like to mention the reason I've decided to no longer shop there.

I'd heard about a case in Alabaster, Alabama where the city was using eminent domain to confiscate some property from various landowners whose families had owned the land for generations. The city was going to turn the land over to some developers building a Wal-Mart store. If this had been an isolated case, that would be one thing. However, radio talk-show host Neil Boortz reports that there are many eminent domain abuses going on around the country. There are two other cases where a Wal-Mart wants land to build a store or parking lot. They go to city councils and say "hey, you can get more tax money off a Wal-Mart than these private homeowners." The politicians, with dollar signs in their eyes, eagerly agree. If one of the landowners decides to spend the money to go to court, they will encounter a judge that is typical of today's big government, anti-private-property-rights government and legal establishment.

But I'll save eminent domain abuse for another rant.

There are other reasons I'm disappointed with Wal-Mart. I'll point them out below.

• When opening a new store, Wal-Mart has plenty of cashiers on-duty to make checkout quick. As time goes by, the number of cashiers goes down until there are only one or two present later at night. In many cases, there is not even an express line open. If someone is buying only a gallon of milk, he may have to stand in line behind someone with an entire cart-load at night.
• The registers are shut down at 12:00 A.M. for about 10 minutes. They supposedly do it for some sort of bookkeeping chores. Why can't they do it at 3:00 A.M. when the store is more empty? Why can't the registers just record the last transaction before midnight? They could certainly put a different procedure in place to handle this.
• I dropped some film off to be developed. There was a sign that said if it wasn't back in (I think) three days, the development would be free. It wasn't ready and when I asked about the free develpment the next day, the photo department manager said I didn't drop them off before the deadline on the day I left them. I told him he was mistaken. It didn't matter. He basically accused me of lying and would not honor their posted policy.
• I had my oil changed at Wal-Mart. A day or so later I noticed there didn't seem to be as many quarters in my change compartment as I remembered, but I couldn't be sure. The next time I had my oil changed, the same guy did it. I had carefully counted all my change before going in and when I got my truck back. Sure enough, there was about 60 cents missing. I guess the guy had decided to take a tip. He was careful to not take all the money, so as not to alert me that he'd taken some. I went in and spoke to the store manager about it. He seemed very interested and went off toward the service department with a determined look on his face. I don't know what he did, though. He also didn't offer to give me my 60 cents back.

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