Walmart.com A Review

Short Summary

No way if you live in L.A.

Sometimes it's not on Ebay or Newegg. You look online and you can't find it at a reasonable price anywhere but Walmart. In Los Angeles Target is king, but Walmart was able to sneak into Downtown L.A. by pretending to be a supermarket. So I can give Walmart.com a shot and pick up my order after a short drive downtown? I wish it were that easy.

A few months ago, I bought a six pack of picture frames from Walmart.com. It was a great deal and I was excited to give Walmart a chance earn my business. A few days passed and I received the email that my order was ready for pick up. I wasn't able to make it there immediately, but I got there a couple of days later. I waited in line and they took my info and looked for my order near the counter. It wasn't there. They looked for it in the back. It wasn't there. They took my phone number and promised to call me the next day with more information.

The next day when they didn't get around to calling me, I called them and they looked for it again. It wasn't there. Tracking said the order was delivered. Their email said the order was ready for pick up. They told me they couldn't do anything for me and I had to call Walmart.com.

Walmart.com was really sorry about losing my order. And they wanted to make it up to me by taking my money for a second time and starting the whole process over. I said how about you refund my money and then I'll place another order. They said it'll take seven days to process my refund. So they could take my money immediately but I had to wait seven days to get my money back. I didn't know that shopping at Walmart.com means getting in the business of short term interest free lending. I argued with the CSR until he immediately refunded my money. I tried again and this time everything worked out. Happy ending right? Walmart.com wasn't so bad.

Now I need a small set of shelves and Walmart.com has the best price. I order them up and they ship. I get a deal alert for a set of Minions mini figures. That sounds like something my niece would like and I've already got an order pending with Walmart.com. Why not order them too and pick them up at the same time?

FedEx and UPS tracking says my orders are in L.A. and ready to be delivered. Fedex says my Minions have been delivered. I'm just waiting for the email that says they're ready for pick up. And my other order?

"The street number is incorrect. This may delay delivery. We're attempting to update the address."

What?! Walmart didn't give UPS the correct address to their own store. I live chat with Walmart.com and they escalate the issue to their Shipping Department. They give me two choices cancel my order and wait seven days for a refund or call the store.

I call the store. I verify the address and I verify that they are still receiving deliveries from UPS. Somehow my order never arrives in their store.

Now UPS has a nifty option where a receiver can alter or correct a mistaken shipping address. I click on that but because I'm not the receiver Neighborhood Market #3086 is I can't correct Walmart.com's mistake. I call Walmart.com and they connect me with UPS and they ask me for a correct address. I give them what I found on the internet and the address is the same. Finally UPS tracking status changes.

"A delivery change for this package is in progress. / We've rescheduled this delivery."

Then soon enough.

"The street number is incorrect. This may delay delivery. We're attempting to update the address / The address has been corrected. The delivery has been rescheduled."

So much for that right? I call Walmart.com and now they give me an option to ship the order directly to me. Of course they expect me to order it again and pay for it again. I don't care how big Walmart is only an idiot would pay for an item twice before receiving it once. I'll take my earlier option and cancel both my orders.

Shopping online is so easy. I'm so unfamiliar with this sort of trouble. I can't say that Newegg or Target would expect me to pay them twice before receiving an item once, but that's only because they've never put me in that position. Walmart may be the world's biggest retailer and people may love shopping at Walmart, but Walmart.com isn't worth the trouble I'd rather shop at eBay.

Getting Internet Service A Review

Short Summary

AT&T sucks...FCC is impotent...TWC sucks, but at least I have Internet.

Earlier this year the FCC changed the definition of broadband, and with that change I was unexpectedly paying $20 a month for a non broadband connection. I figured that meant AT&T would have to change their rates. Now usually when my AT&T contract ends my sister and her family are in town, so I can't really negotiate the best deal I can get because I can't have my nephew lose Internet access. My nephew would lose his mind if he had to forgo Youtube more than a day. but this year they left L.A. a couple of weeks before my AT&T contract ended. It seemed like destiny; this year I would get a better deal for high speed Internet.

I call AT&T a few weeks before my contract ends to get a price for another year of service and to determine exactly when is my last day of service. They say their best offer is my current rate $21.50 a month. I guess AT&T really doesn't want to change their rates, but I can't really accept paying the same amount for less service. I tell them to cancel my service when my contract ends. I hoped that was enough to signal to AT&T that I wouldn't accept the situation.

A week before my service ends and after I've done the research for what rates are available to me I call AT&T again and ask for their best offer. It's not comparable to the rate TimeWarner is offering and when I ask them if there is anything they can do their only response is, "We don't price match." That certainly sounds like an unwillingness to compete, so I file an FCC complaint.

I'd read that some people had success getting their ISPs to behave reasonably after filing FCC complaints. Of course none of them were AT&T so I shouldn't be surprised when AT&T responds to my FCC complaint with a series of ridiculous offers. Their final offer is seven dollars more than what I was currently paying. Wow! I filed a complaint with the FCC and AT&T was so indifferent that they had the nerve to actually raise my rate. So I proceeded to order TimeWarner.

You'd think that would be the end of the story, but signing up for TimeWarner cable was not the easiest thing to do. First TimeWarner wants me to pay them $40 for the privilege of paying them $15 a month for the foreseeable future, but I keep calling until I finally find someone reasonable who will waive that ridiculous fee and I order service. By this point I don't have any Internet service so I have to go my to local library to order a modem.

A few days later my modem arrives. I call TimeWarner Cable to activate it, but it fails to connect. I ask them if they've sent someone to connect me to their system. They say yes. Then they insist on sending a technician. I schedule one for the following week because now I'm concerned that my interior cable is broken. I spend some time over the next few days following the cable verifying that there are no breaks in it.

A few days before my technician is scheduled to arrive I call TimeWarner Cable and attempt to activate my modem again. It doesn't activate, so I ask them if they've sent someone to connect me to their system. They say yes. Then I tell them I'm going to rip the cables out of my wall and replace them with new cable. Then I tell them that I'm going to test those old cables and we'll see if they're bad or not. Very quickly they tell me to hold off on that. Again I ask them if they've sent someone to connect me to their system. This time they say they don't know.

The technician arrives and he wants to come inside and look at my network setup. I point to the telephone pole and tell him to climb up there and physically connect me to their system. He does so and then he wants to look at my network setup again. I tell him that I don't need any help setting up my network. I just needed someone to climb up that pole. He leaves and I attempt to activate my modem. That fails. I connect a computer directly to my modem and call to activate it again. This time activation succeeds. I hook up my wireless router but that fails to connect. Now the CSR wants to send another technician out to me. I say no and try to figure things out for myself. Turns out all I have to do is reset my router and it starts to work. That would be the end of this, except for TimeWarner's attempt to charge me for connecting to their system and AT&T sending me one last offer weeks too late.

Finally with Internet again I sign up as a TimeWarner user and check my account. There I find a $40 charge for a technician visit. Now I never agreed to pay any charge like that and I tell them that in a live chat. They waive that fee and that would settle that. Except now I've got to keep checking my account because I can't trust TimeWarner not to rip me off when I'm looking the other way.

As for AT&T they send me a letter with a final final insult/offer that matches TimeWarner's price. I call them up to ask them some questions about their offer. First off despite it clearly saying no home phone required, the first requirement is either TV, Voice, or Wireless service. $15 a month plus whatever that extra service costs doesn't sound like a very good deal when TimeWarner doesn't have that requirement. Second this is for a one year contract. Although I expect TimeWarner to raise their Everyday Low Price by the end of the year I don't think they'd raise it to the $40 AT&T would cost me after a year. And lastly their rebate offers only apply to those extra services that I neither need nor want. So this offer is definitely no indication of AT&T's willingness to be reasonable. I'd file another FCC complaint but AT&T would just ignore it and I don't care to be insulted any longer. I just wish the whole process was simpler and clearer.

At any time I can go to Newegg, eBay or Amazon and order things and it's so simple. Give them money; receive your product in the mail. But to order Internet service I had to endure a gauntlet. First they try to trick you with their offers. Then when you sign up they try to trick you with their charges. And IT NEVER ENDS. It's sad that this is our system working well. I had options and explored all of them. I know most people would pay a premium to avoid this experience, but that lets AT&T and TimeWarner do whatever they want. As much as we need more competition in the Internet marketplace, consumers need to be willing to walk away from bad deals and offers. I certainly would have. I suffered without Internet service for two weeks because I didn't want to be ripped off. And if I were given the choice between a bad deal or no Internet, I would choose no Internet. Until more of us can say the same then maybe  this system is exactly what we deserve.