Wal-Mart dvd purchase - Roanoke Rapids, NC Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart dvd purchase - Roanoke Rapids, NC Wal-Mart

On our way down from Virginia to South Carolina, my husband and I stopped at the Roanoke Rapids, NC Wal-Mart to purchase a portable dvd player for our two kids to watch movies for the remainder of the trip. After consideration, we decided on the Panasonic 10" dvd player and paid over $300 for it. We mounted the dvd player to our center console in our Jeep.

Everything went great until we tried to put in a different movie. When we switched disks, the player would load the movie, but would freeze part-way through. We thought that maybe something was wrong with that particular disk. When we finally arrived home we were able to play the dvd that was acting up in our regular dvd player. The portable dvd player would play some movies and others it would not load at all, it came back reading "no disk".

We went into our local Wal-Mart store here in South Carolina and they were willing to switch out our player with another if they had one, which they did not. I then called the 1-800 number for Wal-Mart and asked how I go about finding a store that had this particular portable dvd player and was told that someone would get back with me. Over the past two weeks or so, I have been given such the run around by them. No one seems to be able to take accountability for anything, or they choose not to. I've been told that my local store would have the Panasonic dvd player, they did but not the right size (smaller). I've been told that the District Manager would call me because they supposedly have to authorize merchandise being shipped from one store to another, he didn't call.....instead they have someone else who can't seem to help you call.

Now don't get me wrong, everyone has been friendly and has acted like they are concerned about my situation, but they don't help me they just pass me along for someone else to call me within 2-3 business days. When I called the corporate number I was told that she would have the Area VP call me (within 2-3 business days) but she couldn't give me his name- said she didn't know it. I would be pretty offended if I was an AVP and one of my associates didn't know my name. After being fed up with everything, I looked on the bbb website and got the CEO's name. I called the number and asked if I could leave a voice mail for him.

After all, if I was blessed to be sitting there as a CEO of a company because people choose to shop at my store I would like to know if my company maybe had a pretty big problem with communication, follow-up and willingness to take action.......I'm just looking to switch out my dvd player that's not working. Well, as I so nicely asked to just leave a voice mail, I was told "NO you can't!" like I'm some piece of trash. After that phone call, I made another call back to their elevated customer service number and again got nowhere. I then went to my check book just to see how much I do spend at their store to be treated like a piece of trash.

And I saw in February I spent over $275. In March I spent well over $1000 (the same month I bought the portable dvd player). And in April so far, I have spent almost $600. And I started to wonder...does this company really care about it's customers and the business it gets from us? After all, I'm just wanting to exchange my dvd player. I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm asking for something much bigger than just sending a dvd player from Roanoke Rapids down to South Carolina so that I can make my exchange. Which by the way, I've been waiting for over a week now for the District Manager who never called to locate a store that had this particular dvd player, only took me about 15 minutes and I'm not a Wal-Mart associate.

I simply ask that you check your check registers and see how much money you spend at any store and ask yourself if you are satisfied with the customer service that you are receiving for the amount of money you spend with them. For me and Wal-Mart, they don't seem to care and they lost my business for good and anyone else's who will listen to my story. They are convient and they are cheaper, but it's not worth selling out my integrity to be treated like chopped liver over such simple requests.

akennard Click this link to e-mail the message author: Email User