Thanks to Walmart’s recent vow to extend its price-matching policy to some popular online retailers, evildoers exposed a huge flaw in the system this week. People reportedly created fake Amazon merchant listings for PlayStation 4 consoles so they could print screen grabs of the prices and take them to their local Walmarts to purchase brand new PS4 units for as cheap as $90. That’s a pretty big problem for the giant retailer, obviously, since the video game systems retail for approximately $400. However, Walmart seems to have handled the messy situation rather quickly, as CNBC reported that only four units were sold for these reduced prices.
While it’s only one random person on Twitter, this guy proved that one Tweet can start a firestorm of jealousy and copycat ambitions, as plenty of people were asking him for advice and pointers in his mentions. A few people challenged his ethics, but he clearly didn’t care. Would you?
UPDATE: A spokesperson for Walmart reached out to us with an official statement, and long story short – you can thank the four jerks for ruining price-matching for the rest of us.
“We launched online price matching because it’s the right thing for our customers. It’s making a meaningful difference for people who want to feel confident they’re getting the best price, and we’re committed to matching online prices going forward.
“At the same time, we can’t tolerate fraud or attempts to trick our cashiers. This kind of activity is unfair to the millions of customers who count on us every day for honest value. With this in mind, we’ve updated our policy to clarify that we will match prices from Walmart.com and 30 major online retailers, but we won’t honor prices from marketplace vendors, third-party sellers, auction sites or sites requiring memberships.
“We will continue to listen to feedback from our customers and our cashiers to make sure our online price match policy is working. Customers with questions can read the updated policy by searching ‘online price match’ at Walmart.com.”
At least one person who responded to that Tweet claimed to have tried it again, only to be shut down by a Walmart employee who told him that the company was no longer matching Amazon prices. It’s safe to say that as soon as anyone at Walmart’s corporate HQ caught wind, the memo went out tout de suite. So for anyone still looking for a disingenuous discount, it’s a matter of how much those four people are selling their PS4s for now.
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(H/T to Bro Bible)