How far is the audacity of these retail chains going to go?

I might as well bring up the one thing that’s been driving my blood pressure through the roof this past month.
The Walmart in San Francisco.
Just take a look at this sign hanging over the entrance that’s been sitting there for two months straight.

I honestly have no idea what the hell the consumer protection agencies are even doing with their lives.
I want to know exactly what kind of garbage software they’re running and which bottom-tier developers are responsible for letting it stay broken for months on end.

Oh yeah, I missed one more sign:

"Think twice about where you spend your money—shop at American retail centers"

They just forgot to mention the part about—IMPORTED GOODS.

Look, everyone knows Walmart is just playing games 🙄

The absolute tragedy here is that neither the IRS nor any consumer protection agency even provides a functional email address where you could actually send a complaint.

I honestly can't wrap my head around how Walmart has the audacity to put a sign like that up in the first place, because if I ever dared to hang something similar in my own shop... well, let's just say I wouldn't be around to see the reaction.

crimsonhound3 said:I honestly have no clue what the consumer protection agencies are even doing...
.

Well, here’s my two cents.
I was over in Charleston at Benetton the other day, and they had this massive "90% OFF" sign plastered all over the window. If that's the case, every single item in the store should be marked down. Instead, it was just a bunch of random junk on clearance while everything else stayed full price. Honestly, someone should call the Better Business Bureau and tell them to go handle it...

At Walmart, it’s become a regular occurrence for prices to skyrocket between the shelf and the register. It’s happened to me more than a few times, always without warning. There wasn't a single sign or notice about potential price discrepancies, and the jumps were massive: one tool was marked at $6.25 on the shelf, but once I hit the checkout, it jumped to 35 😲
It honestly left a bad taste in my mouth... I even found several items that were at least 40% cheaper at Home Depot, which actually offers better quality since everything here feels like low-grade, third-rate 🙄

Bottom line: Walmart 👎

Last year 😉
The rumor was there from day one—that he set the fire himself. I won’t get bogged down in the details because it’s a rabbit hole, but personally? I buy it. When you see the level this guy operates at, it’s stomach-turning. He’s docking every single employee $167 out of their already pathetic wages just because of some burnt-out building that wasn't even his to begin with. Then, he cashes in the insurance money—which, by the way, was paid out just a month or two before the whole mess happened. Honestly, I don't even get how he managed to insure Diana's—formerly Universal's—building. To make matters worse, the structure was actually safe after the fire; it had been stuck without an occupancy permit for years due to terrible construction (everyone remembers how those floors used to sway if you even jumped). And the icing on the cake? He goes on public record claiming the fireworks for the grand opening of the new department store—which, again, isn't even his, he just got it from the city—only cost him $3.25 😲
. So yeah, he’s taking $167 out of people's paychecks for "renovations," yet finds the cash for fireworks for $3.25... I mean, seriously 🙄
.
Maybe I'm wrong. This is just my IMHO 😎

Haven you all heard about this online retailer offering 30% off with direct home delivery? Honestly, once you try it, you can say goodbye to those overpriced local shops forever.

Have you all heard the news about this online store offering massive 60% discounts and direct home delivery? Honestly, once you experience this level of convenience, you'll never have to deal with those overpriced local singers again.

Sure, if you know what you're doing, you can hit a 90% success rate... though you might end up with some pretty lousy results along the way.

Should we opt for 30% or perhaps 60%?

Moonlight Cat said:Let me give you an example that has absolutely sent my blood pressure through the roof this past month.
The "Singer" in Miami.
Just look at this sign at the entrance that’s been sitting there for over two months now.

I honestly have no idea what the consumer protection agencies are even doing.
What kind of godforsaken software are they using, and which developers are responsible for letting it stay broken for months on end?

I don't know how things are in other shopping centers, but the Singer in Miami is a total disaster. One day something is in one spot, and the next day it’s been moved a hundred yards away, hidden behind something else, scattered without any logic whatsoever. Employees are constantly rearranging and moving things around, and if you actually bother to ask them for information, you might as well not bother. Look, I’m not judging the people working there for peanuts, but it is genuinely idiotic to watch someone try to sell a product they clearly know nothing about. I actually watched an employee take a lawnmower completely apart just trying to explain to a customer how to wind the line. The poor guy ended up just gathering all that junk back up and walking out without saying a word. As for the pricing, they’ve always been idiots. You see a big, nice advertisement for "clear silicone $5.00," you get to the register, the cashier scans the barcode, and suddenly it says white silicone and costs $24.99. You'd think they were robbing you blind, let alone $3.25. But it isn't just $3.25—it’s over a 70% markup from the advertised price. Now, they’ve apparently decided to expand this scam even further by putting up signs that basically give them permission to fleece anyone they want. If you complain, fine; if you don't, even better for them.

Eh, honestly, that’s just typical for us!😢

Anyway, let me throw my own experience into the ring:

Last summer, I was visiting my godfather over in Des Moines, and we headed out to grab some satellite cable. We hit up this place called Best Buy—one of the big players in that area—and picked up 20 meters. Once we got home, we realized we were short about 2 or 3 meters. So, we trek back to Best Buy, receipt in hand, find the guy who sold it to us, and ask if he could just swap it for 25 meters and take the 20 back. NOPE. Not a chance. I asked him why, and he looked at me like I was the idiot, saying, "Why didn't you just buy more in the first place? You think I can just do that for every single customer walking through the door?"

But wait, there's more!

While we were arguing about the cable, there was this woman about two feet away trying to buy a child seat for a bike. She asked if she could return it if it didn't fit right, and the clerk basically told her she couldn't—unless she wanted to ride the bike back into the store to test it. The lady was so fed up she practically sent him straight to hell; she lived maybe twenty miles outside of Des Moines.

It makes you lose faith in people.
Unfortunately, that's just our reality. And what bugs me most is that people don't even give it a second thought. They just stay quiet, acting like everything is totally normal. It’s pathetic!
It's like when you're at a toll booth and they charge you an extra fifty cents just because you're paying in cash instead of using a card, regardless of what the Federal Reserve says the exchange rate is.
Fifty cents doesn't seem like much, but if you have 1,000 tourists pass through in one day, and that happens for 40 days, that’s $160 gone into someone's pocket$0.00?

And finally, my job involves working with manufacturing firms, so I know a thing or two about the relationship between retail and production. To an outsider, it would be obvious why we don't have real consumer protection laws. It's because the biggest lobby in this country belongs to the retailers—specifically the importers!

They are the absolute rot of this nation. They're the ones truly responsible for the state of things, along with the politicians who act like their little puppets.
👎 👎 🙂

It’s like those toll booths where you end up paying a few extra cents just because you’re using dollars instead of the official Federal Reserve exchange rate.
A few cents doesn't seem like much, but if you have 1,000 tourists rolling through in a single day, over 40 days that adds up to an extra $160 $0.00.

I wish it were actually that bad. But honestly, even if you walk away with zero profit, you've still made enough to cover a month's worth of lunch for the guys working the toll booths.

At the end of the day, it all just boils down to one big, fucking inefficient legal system. Singer wouldn't even dream of doing it if they actually had the authority to...

My experience at Singer [KC] ~ 🙄

1. There’s zero heat in the winter, so walking inside feels like stepping into a walk-in freezer. Honestly, the staff isn't exactly rolling out the red carpet either [and a friend of mine lost like 20 pounds in two weeks just from working there 🙄 ]

2. The cashiers are stuck standing behind those counters all damn day 🙄

3. If you actually need to ask a question, good luck finding anyone even remotely close by 🙄

4. So I see this Discman—price is $175 for cash, but jumps to 576 if you use a check. Fine, whatever, I grab one and the lady rings me up $185! I ask her what the deal is—I used my debit card [which should basically count as cash in any sane world, right?]—and she just shrugs and says, "Yeah, that's what the computer spit out." And I look, and sure enough, that's what it says. But get this: the prices on the actual products are handwritten with a Sharpie?! 🙄 No wonder their system is a complete mess! 👎
I figured, why bother getting into a huge fight over $10, especially when they clearly rely on those margins. But $3.25 man, it's $20 extra for nothing. I'm done shopping there.

🙄

Moonlight Cat said:Let me give you an example that has honestly sent my blood pressure through the roof this past month.
The "Singer" in Miami.
Just look at this sign at the entrance that's been sitting there for two months now.

I just don't understand what the consumer protection agency is doing.
What kind of broken software is this? And which developers are letting it stay like this for months on end?

Seriously, what consumer protection agency are you talking about? Our local one? HA HA...

Here is my own experience.
LESNINA - WASHINGTON, D.C.
I ordered a bed—from IKEA via Lesnina, by the way, this was a long time ago. Back in December 2022... it STILL hasn't arrived.
I can't even remember which specific model I ordered😢 ,
but anyway, I called our precious consumer protection agency.
After being bounced around through a dozen different numbers and people, I finally got through to some lawyer (or so he claimed). He actually had the nerve to ask me, "Ma'am, did you agree on specific terms?" And I told him, "No, the invoice clearly lists the delivery date and the price," unbelievable.😢 ,
And then he tells me—roughly like this—"Well, that doesn't really matter because you couldn't have agreed to that anyway, since you know... it's just not how we do things here, blah blah..." essentially saying those rules don't apply to stuff like this.
The point of this whole story is that you can only sue for penalties and nothing more. You can take them to court, but given how our legal system works... it wouldn't even be worth it.
So, I completely get where you're coming from, but what can we actually do?🙄

At the end of the day, Best Buy isn't the actual issue here, it’s just that we live in a country where a guy like Best Buy is even allowed to exist in the first place.