The Walmart Fiasco

Typically I would complain about more important things than my day-to-day findings at America’s retailers, but this particular instance has wasted my time and ruined my day. I’ve been looking for nearly a week to find and buy myself a Canon Rebel T2i (aptly called the 550D elsewhere in the world, which I prefer), but apparently buying a 550D is comparable to buying a Wii at Christmastime: Best of luck finding one. After scouting the interwebs for what seemed to be a fruitless endeavor, I finally found a retail store that had at least one 550D in stock.

Success! I had found the one retail store in the states of Michigan and Ohio that had cameras in stock (seriously, they aren’t carried anywhere else within a 100 mile radius). My mother was kind enough to offer to drive me to the Taylor, MI Walmart (an hour away) before having to be at work. Since this trip would consume a considerable amount of time–and more specifically because I refused to chance having my camera disappear on me–I called ahead. When asking the very nice lady on the other end if she could set aside one for me, she assured me that she didn’t expect them to sell any time soon, but guaranteed that she would set one aside for me should the situation present itself.

With this, my mom and I embarked on our journey to the construction-torn I-75. We finally arrived at our destination an hour later, as I had told the salesperson. After making our way to the camera department, I looked at the selection and noticed that the 550D was mysteriously absent next to its older counterpart. My first thought was that they had perhaps mistaken the 500D with the 550D I wanted, so we went to the desk and explained to the woman that I had called previously about the camera. I was met with a deer in headlights look as she explained to me that her associate had already sold the camera that she set aside for me. I was dumbfounded.

It turns out someone had called in that time to inquire about the same camera. Apparently the store clerk had disclosed that it was set aside for someone, but if he were to call after an hour (the traveling time I quoted her) she could let him know if it was available. What this guy chose to do instead was drive to Walmart before me and say that he was the one who had called. As an aside, this is why you always take down names for reserved items and also why you don’t disclose that much information over the phone. I was twelve levels of irate, but handled the situation comparatively well. She offered to sell me the display model at 10% off, but I looked at it and saw grubby finger marks all over the inner mirror because there was no lens on the camera body. That broke the deal for me, since it seems silly to pay upwards of $800 for a camera that would be of a significantly lower quality. Not to mention this is all to no fault of my own!

The women apologized up and down, but it wasn’t about to put a camera in my hand, so I left before I would lose my temper at having driven an hour for absolutely no reason.