ONE shopper has slammed Walmart’s “horrendous” payment policy after the chain cancelled an order.
But the customer says that the retail giant is blaming them over not getting their groceries and having to “starve”.
Shopper Isabella said in a post to X that she was shopping for food delivery because she is currently not well.
She arranged for someone else to pick up her order and used a different card as a payment method.
She wrote: “I placed the order so I won’t starve and Walmart alerts me it immediately cancelled my order and sent me three Walmart emails.
“Nowhere does it explain why it was cancelled and it tells me I can reorder.”
Isabella then said she called her card company who told her there was nothing wrong with the plastic but it had reversed the charge.
But a call to Walmart customer service found that her order was flagged due to the card switch.
She wrote: “I can never get back the items in my order (ie gone forever so I would have to send an order again).
“Then she tells me I have to wait one hour for something to process and only then can I try to reorder.
“I will starve today due to Walmart’s horrendous consumer practices.”
It comes after one shopper was left fuming when they found Walmart stores don’t have tap-to-pay options.
That shopper thought they would be able pay with their phone and use Apple Pay.
Instead, they have their own payment method called Walmart Pay, on the Walmart app.
Earlier this year one shopper was left “livid” after being charged on two cards at the same time.
In her tweet, Davidson claimed that Walmart attempted to charge her for a purchase on two different credit cards simultaneously.
The incident led her to cancel her debit card and her Walmart+ membership.
Walmart has been approached for comment about Isabella’s case.
Legality of receipt checks and detention
In an effort to curtail retail crime, stores are increasingly turning to receipt checks as shoppers exit.
Legally, stores can ask to see a customer’s receipts, and membership-only stores have the right to demand such checks if shoppers agreed to terms and conditions that authorize it.
Many legal professionals have weighed in and come to similar conclusions, caveating that all states do have specific laws.
Generally speaking, stores have Shopkeeper’s Privilege laws that allow them to detain a person until authorities arrive when they have reasonable suspicion that a crime, like theft, has been committed.
Declining to provide a receipt is not a reason in itself for a store to detain a customer, they must have further reason to suspect a shopper of criminal activity.
Due to the recent nature of the receipt checks, there is little concrete law on the legality of the practice, as it takes time for law to catch up with technology.
Setliff Law, P.C. claims that “there is no definitive case law specifically relating to refusal to produce a receipt for purchases.”
For stores that improperly use their Shopkeeper’s Privilege, they could face claims of false imprisonment.
“The primary law that applies to these types of wrongful detention cases is called ‘False Imprisonment’,” explained Hudson Valley local attorney Alex Mainetti.
“Of course, you’re not literally imprisoned, but you’re detained by a person who has no lawful authority to detain you and/or wrongfully detains a customer.”
It is likely that as altercations in stores over receipt checks continue, more court cases will occur giving clearer definitions and boundaries to the legality of receipt checks.
