Wal-Mart's Degradingly Arrogant Managers

I really don't like Wal-Mart, Target, etc. Enough so, that I usually shop on Amazon now. Seriously. Anyways, it's never terribly pleasant. Anyways, I just read this guy's story of being accused of being a drug dealer for wanting to buy multiple prepaid phones for review purposes. To make a long story short, Wal-Mart has a policy against selling more than two prepaid phones per customer per day. The phone companies want this to prevent resale. However, some arrogant Wal-Mart employees think it has something to do with drug deals. And they all but accused him of being a drug dealer, and insisted it was "the law" that they couldn't sell him the phones. Wal-Mart has a very hard time distinguishing between store policies and the law, but the situation reminded me of one of my own run-ins (sadly that is plural) with Wal-Mart years ago.

This occurred at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Missoula, MT sometime in 2004 or 2005. I was shopping with my 19 year old cousin and he tried to buy a bargain bin DVD of old TV shows (pre-ratings system thus unrated). Wal-Mart's inventory system classifies unrated content as R, though one look would show this was far from it. They carded him. He didn't have ID. He called me, I went to buy it for him. The cashier refused, saying I was going to give it to him. I asked for a manager.

I got a CSM. A CSM is not a real manager, they're pretend managers Wal-Mart has to placate people who ask for a manager. I expected the CSM to talk some sense into his cashier, instead he was far worse. He said that the law said they couldn't sell me the DVD since they had reason to believe I was going to give it to him (1. There is no law, MPAA ratings are voluntary; 2. It was unrated, not R; 3. The VOLUNTARY requirements are anyone under 17 needs an adult with them to see an R movie or to buy one. If it even was R). Then he said "it's just like if you were trying to buy cigarettes for a little kid"

I freaked out on the guy, and I should've freaked out a bit more. I told him he was being completely inappropriate, unacceptable, and illogical. Eventually, he made Kevin leave the store and let me buy the DVD with a huge frown.

I've had a few other run-ins too, but that was probably the most offensive. Wal-Mart sucks.