Walmart Nightmare

 

I discovered a few years ago that Walmart will deliver groceries to your home.  I was suspicious, but for a few years it's really worked out well.  The groceries were as good as I would have selected.  If there was a problem, they took it off my bill.  Until today. 

At around 9:30 this morning I placed an order, really, a large order, almost $500.  Was that where things went wrong?  Was it because they were busy on Monday?  I checked on the progress of my delivery, and it looked like it would be here around 1:00 pm.  It was on the way according to the website.  I kept tabs on it because I wanted to put things away in the freezer, since about a fourth of the order was frozen food.  Then at around 2:00 pm I got an email that delivery was attempted but unsuccessful.   So they headed  back to Walmart with my order.  I called to 800 number and the local store.  The driver was asked why he didn't deliver my order.  He said it was a non existent address.  I asked why he couldn't have called me.  I heard flimsy excuses.  But Walmart was going to send a second driver out.  I checked on the progress, and never saw any.  However, at 4:00 pm I noticed that I had missed a call from the delivery people at 3:30.  They were also convinced the address was not correct.  This isn't an address that I made up today.  This is one that comes up automatically when I order and it was definitely correct.  And yet twice they had failed to deliver the groceries. 

Many calls were made.  But at 8:00 pm there was still no order, and when I called the store, the order wasn't on the way.  Maybe around midnight, they said.   I asked them to cancel the order.  They said they weren't authorized to cancel the order.  I made my tenth call today to the 800 number. After a long run around with their computer phone person I finally reached someone who's still in the mode of making this delivery happen.  But I didn't want to be putting groceries away at midnight and I had things to do tomorrow, so probably after six requests, they agreed to cancel my order.  I  am distressed about this.  If it weren't such a huge order, it might not be so disturbing.  Having them handle the entire month's groceries this way has been alarming.   I can't wrap my head around it.   I know what was going to happen.  Either tomorrow morning I would find that they had arrived sometime in the middle of the night and the frozen food was ruined, and the food that needed refrigeration would probably have to also be tossed out, or there would be a repeat of today's experience tomorrow.  

I don't understand why they did this to me.   Was it because the dollar amount was so large?  Because it was Monday?  The first business day of the month?  They told me over and over how busy they had been today.  OK.  Tell me you can't do it today instead of telling me to sit by the door for 10 hours waiting for you.   The entire day wound up revolving around trying to accommodate Walmart.   It's not going to happen again tomorrow.  Probably never.  I'll go back to picking up my groceries at the store.   And really, that would have taken less of my time today.  They even went off on a rant at me at one point about the long distance to my home.  Really?  It's a ten minute drive.   

Cheesh.  I'm trying to decide if I should write their corporate offices.  A whole day of my life made increasingly more disturbing, no matter how much was done on my part to fix it.  I had thought I was going to have something for dinner tonight.  Instead, I had a peanut butter sandwich.   Which is what I had had last night.    And that was all I had to eat today.  Except for a can of pineapple.  This is just so demoralizing.