Walmart’s Savings Catcher seems like a good idea. But it’s not.
If you’ve been following my Christmas for FREE Experiment you know that I started to shop at Walmart for the first time for groceries because their receipts are accepted by all the savings apps, and some of the stores in my area are not. I got excited because they also had the added benefit of Savings Catcher so I didn’t have to go to multiple stores to get the sale prices from those stores or stand in line at customer service to get a price match.
Sounds like a great thing right! Yeah, except when something seems to good to be true it usually is. Sadly that is the case with Savings Catcher.
I wish I had researched what others were saying BEFORE so I knew what to expect. Recently I had a receipt that didn’t process in the normal 2-3 day window that Savings Catcher promises. I had been watching because it was the first time I was buying 2 products I knew were on BOGO at a store near by (literally could have just gone next door to get them) and I wanted to be sure I got the difference.
After 2 week’s I went to customer service where a very gruff representative rolled her eyes and told me to call 1-800-Walmart. So I did. Here’s where it gets fun.
The representative I spoke to was very nice let me start by saying that. All the phone representatives were all very professional. That being said I was told that she would “escalate this to tier 2”. Remember that phrase because you will hear it again.
Also she asked which items I knew were on sale elsewhere so I gave her the items and where they were on sale. She told me I would see results in 2-3 days.
A week later still nothing so I called again. This time I got a nice man (again very professional) who told me that the other representative just didn’t have the authority that he did and he would submit for reprocessing. Again, I gave him the specific items that I knew were BOGO and the store. He assured me that I should NOT worry because they keep the ads from other stores in a database that they can access for YEARS and that I would get the deal. If I didn’t see results in 2-3 Days they would escalate it to . . . You guessed it tier 2.
After another week still nothing. So again I called. This time the very professional representative took all the same information assured me I would get the deal and immediately sent everything up to Tier 2 because it shouldn’t take a month for a receipt to process. I was also told that a Tier 2 representative would contact me.
Finally my receipt was processed and you can probably guess that I did not receive my savings for my BOGO offer. Again I called sure we could correct this issue.
The very professional representative was very sympathetic but insisted she could not find a record of me calling previously. She then discovered (despite the fact that Savings Catcher is tied to my Email address) they spelled my name wrong and that’s why she couldn’t find me. I asked her why I didn’t get the BOGO.
Now remember the second representative who told me they could access ads for Years in their database? This representative told me she couldn’t access an add past a month old and that if I wanted the BOGO offer I would have to send them proof of the offer.
Now I didn’t think to save a month old ad. Why because I didn’t think I had to. I had been assured that their database went back YEARS.
When I said that was stupid and unreasonable to expect me to have that ad the representative said She would be happy to send it up to . . . Can you all say it with me? Yep Tier 2.
This time I said I wanted to speak to someone from Tier 2. Silence. Then you can’t speak to someone from Tier 2. I insisted I wanted someone to call me and explain why if they had this magical database why I now had to prove to them what the other store had on sale. She said she would ask someone from Tier 2 to review the situation and contact me. It’s been a week and I’ve heard nothing.
My guess is Tier 2 doesn’t exist. It’s probably what Walmart’s phone reps are told to say to placate guests who have difficulties. I guess I’m out the additional $4.88 I would have saved if I had chosen to shop at the other store that had the better deals that day. Lesson learned. I will once again be checking ads for the best price and shopping at that store for the week. Sorry Walmart I don’t have the time to make sure your database was accurate each week. Will this effect my Christmas savings going forward? Possibly but in the end I still want the best price for the items I do buy each week and if I can’t count on Walmart to actually match the best price then I have to move on.
