WAL-MART HIDES BEHIND FAKE LAWS…
A few months ago the Homeland Security world was all a twitter over suspicious characters buying armloads of cell phones from Wal-Marts. It turned out to be an innocent entrepreneurial exercise — buying cheap phones in one location to be resold for a profit.
But apparently Wal-Mart is still phone-shy after the incident and has implemented a policy masquerading as a law to thwart anyone wishing to buy more than a couple of phones. From Prepaid Reviews:
A few weeks ago we came up with the idea of doing some activation guides for the prepaidreviews.com site. My boss asked me to run up to Wal-Mart and grab every prepaid phone they sold.
[Snip]
I head to the electronics department, find the nearest salesperson and tell him I’d like to buy some prepaid phones. The prepaid phones are locked into the racks and require a sales associate to unlock them (it’s at times like these I’m in love with the online shopping revolution).
A very nice associate named Tom tells me “no problem†and locates a set of keys to open the racks. He asks me which phone I want and I say, “I’d like to buy one of each brand.â€Tom gives me a puzzled look, and I quickly explain that I work for a website that reviews the phone providers and we were working on a project and needed one from each carrier.
Tom smiles and makes small talk about how he goes online sometimes to find car parts (at this exact moment, I realize that not everyone spends 12 hours a day online). He collects my phones (seven in total) and walks me over to the register.Then another sales associate named Tara looks at me, then at Tom and finally at the phones and says to Tom, “you know he can’t buy all those phones.”
Tom looks puzzled for a second and then his eyes light up with recognition. He turns to me and says, “I’m sorry sir, she’s right. We can’t sell you more than two phones.â€
The rest of the tale is twisted and, of course, there is no such law; unless of course Wal-Mart has usurped (or bought) the legislative branch of our nation.
Now, if Lee Scott laid down the law on dangerously contaminated food on the shelves of stores as clearly as he did about selling too many cell phones, we might actually have a little more homeland security.
I don’t think this is an issue of Wal*Mart hiding behind fake laws, I think it’s an issue of Wal*Mart employees just being poorly trained and uninformed.
Which is not a surprise at all.
Shalom Bob,
I suppose it’s possible that the clerks made up the it’s the law excuse, but I doubt it.
My money is on someone much higher up writing a memo directing the response, in which case Wal-Mart is hiding behind a fake law rather than taking responsibility for its own policy decision.
B’shalom,
Jeff
There’s no telling where it came from. It’s similar to the service desk clerks who claim that Wal*Mart doesn’t take back open pre-recorded media due to copyright laws. It’s possible they’ve heard it from another clerk or from someone higher up or simply misinterpreted what the situation was.
I don’t know about the store you were shopping in but the store I worked in at the time the prepaid phone limits started was visited by many “vendors” representing their individual companies. These vendors were the ones that informed us we could only sell so many phones per customer per visit. As far as the “federal copyright law” I can’t tell you I know where it came from, cause I don’t. In the 9 years I’ve been with Wal-Mart that has always been the rule. I was personally told it was a law by my management team at multiple different times in multiple stores.
[...] WAL-MART HIDES BEHIND FAKE LAWS… A few months ago the Homeland Security world was all a twitter over suspicious characters buying armloads of cell phones from Wal-Marts. It turned out to be an innocent entrepreneurial exercise — buying cheap phones in one location to be resold for a profit. Keep reading… [...]
Shalom Amanda,
You have to wonder what’s going on when a manufactured voluntarily restricts its own sales.
It sound to me as if the deal Wal-Mart negotiated was so good the company felt it needed to protect its other retail outlets from resales.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Shalom Bob,
You very well could be right.
B’shalom,
Jeff