Any time saved by ordering online and picking up the order has vanished chasing customer support people to fix something that would have taken a few seconds through their website.
Does it bother anyone else that the top of that radio tower would have never fit in the first place?
Yes
Hmmm.
Tell me you know nothing about front or backend webdev…
Tell me you know nothing about anti-consumer business practices…
This guy does it all! Front and back!
top and bottom, too.
In between is the best place to be!
Tamest comment I’ve seen obliterated.
Tell me you ever had a dream that you, um, you had, your, you- you could, you’ll do, you- you wants, you, you could do so, you- you’ll do, you could- you, you want, you want them to do you so much you could do anything?
Enlighten us with your “back end and front end webdev” skills. Tell me how this knowledge contradicts the shady practice of fixing issues quickly when they affect purchasing, but ignoring them conveniently when they affect users getting money back. I’m very intrigued.
Don’t talk to our “FRONT END AND BACK END DEV” like that.
“Take what’s coming out of your FRONT END and blow it out your BACK END!”
It’s almost like buying and refunding are two completely different processes that are handled under entirely different protocols by credit processors, and one part working has no bearing on whether or not the other part works.
Regardless of how these protocols may be handled, they advise customers to use the refund option within the order screen on the website, which is what I did.
If it’s broken, why even direct people there? I wouldn’t expect a half-working website from one of the largest retailers on the planet.
Links generally don’t know if the service on the other end of the link is up or down at that time. I mean you could have it go out and prefetch the headers but that’s a lot of overhead for every link.
“The service” in this context, would simply be another Walmart page. A page which also just happened to be one where I’d start the process of getting money back.
It was not a page to actually process any transactions, but to start the process of requesting a refund.
It’s not the first company to “offer self serve” where the action involves taking away revenue and just so happens to never ever work, requiring a call to their support. It’s almost as if they know some people will just give up and they can keep the profits.
I don’t see how this information changes what I’ve said. Do you think if the “different protocol” that enabled purchasing was broken the website wouldn’t fix it fairly quickly? I never claimed they share the same components, but I do claim they have very different prioritization.
That being cleared, I also disagree with your premise - half of the web stores I’ve worked with used the exact same system that takes the money to refund it. Obviously the internal process made by the credit card’s operator is different, but there was no way for the payments system to be down for intake and not refunds as far as the website was concerned - and this screenshot clearly shows an issue with Walmart not loading a page, not MasterCard delaying operations.
I never claimed they share the same components, but I do claim they have very different prioritization.
And I never claimed they don’t have different prioritization. I’m just saying that one working doesn’t mean the other will also work.
and this screenshot clearly shows an issue with Walmart not loading a page, not MasterCard delaying operations.
The page may have not loaded because of a failed API call to the credit processor when requesting a refund. Charges and refunds are different API usages, and it’s wholly possible that an issue on the processor’s side can break pages on a merchant’s site. If for some reason Walmart’s site can’t communicate with Visa/MC/AmEx/whoever and their page isn’t configured to handle a specific failure, it will likely go to a default error landing page as a failsafe.
I’m not defending Walmart or anything; just explaining some of the technical reasons a refund page can break. API failures happen even to non-scummy stores, as well.
The page may have not loaded because of a failed API call to the credit processor when requesting a refund.
It didn’t even get that far.
This error quite literally came up when I click on the “request a refund” button within my order (where Walmart said I needed to. There should have been another page asking which item(s) I want to refund, and I would imagine ask me for a reason why. That’s well before it needs to call an API for credit processing.
In any case, this was mildly infuriating, more for the wasted time on something that should have taken two seconds.
FWIW, I can only hope that Walmart gets notified whenever these end user issues pop up on the website… so they can fix the problem. It’s been many hours already, and the page still errors out. Unless they’ve hired amateurs, this seems excessive. Would it take this long if their payment system was down?
My friend, you’re on !MildlyInfuriating
An annoyance is still an annoyance even if there’s a reason for it
You’re right, it could be a totally be a different service that is individually down, but dude this phrase is the heckin woooorrrrst
While this is technically accurate, if this is a long-term pattern you would hope that this would be fixed pretty easily, or have a comparable SLA to other services. If your refund tool is always down, that’s a leadership decision.
I’d like to take this opportunity to make an honorable mention of Planet Fitness, LegalShield, and BeenVerified for all having functional purchase and subscription systems yet forcing me to cancel my subscription either through writing or by phone. I will never use any of these again.
Walmart is already on my boycott list, alongside Kroger.
Roblox (the kid’s game), asked me to send a DRIVER’S LICENSE to close my account.
I made it very clear that if I didn’t need to provide one to sign up, I sure as hell wasn’t going to give it to them now.
If you have a Walmart card, there’s a similar annoyance with the Capital One app on my phone. The screen to pay your bill scrolls up and down just fine, so you can scroll down to pay. The screen to redeem your collected points for cash back? Yeah, no. The screen doesn’t scroll, so I can’t get far enough down to swipe the submit widget.
I had a similar issue redeeming points on a different credit card. Always a problem.
Seems like too much of a coincidence for these companies.
It’s probably a feature, not a bug.
See: Dark Pattern (to be specific, Roach Motel)
Huh, weird, you know I seem to only have “technical issues” about understanding how in capitalism you have to actually purchase the products you take from shelves when I am exiting Walmart stores.
Once I get near the door I just get all of sudden get confused about thinking that Walmart must be a government run care facility, I mean taxpayers subsidize Walmart’s entire workforce because they don’t pay a living wage to any of them, can you really blame me for my confusion?? Sometimes I end up thinking crazy thoughts like Walmart wants me to take some things for free because they feel sorry for obliterating the local businesses I used to frequent in my community (and the associated good quality jobs).
Sometimes confusion gets the best of us I guess, we are all fallible people including Walmart™ which as we all know, is indeed a person.
Been using WM pickup service since the start of the pandemic. I’ve a browser that flushes cookies, so I have to sign in every time I order. They demand 2FA, but I discovered if I had $20 or $30 of groceries in my cart before I signed in, all of a sudden a password was enough.
Also the quality has gone down steadily the whole time I’ve used them. Dented cans, old eggs and wilted produce. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t buy anything fresh from them unless I can’t get it elsewhere.
I tried ordering online and picking up at the store twice. Both times there were complications and I ended up having to call customer support, and waiting in the parking lot for nearly an hour. Walmart does not give a shit and they know they’re too big to fail.
