Walmart Doesn’t Care If They Get You Sick

Hello readers! I did have a First Impressions Friday raring to go but unfortunately some really horrendous events have taken the forefront in my week so my FIF post will have to be, well, postponed.

I apologize for the clickbaity title, but to be honest it’s really not that far off the mark. Let me give you a rundown of what I’ve been dealing with this week at the hands of our most “beloved” mega-corp, Walmart.

As many of you know, I’m an American who lives both in the US and UK. When the pandemic kicked off I was in the UK and I had to make the heartbreaking decision to shelter in place rather than fly back home to the US. This meant that my elderly and disabled parents would be left alone in one of the hardest hit cities in the state. Needless to say it’s been one of the toughest decisions of my life.

Despite desperately wanting to be with them, the insanity that was happening at airports meant that I’d most likely end up travelling for days and would catch something and give it to my parents.

Americans trying to get home.

To help them get by, we’ve placed orders with retailers online wherever possible but it’s been getting increasingly difficult. We eventually managed to snag a slot from Walmart this week and I had been so relieved but that relief was extremely short-lived.

Here’s a timeline of the super fun time we’ve been having with Walmart!

• • • The delivery day came and despite no delivery being made, my parents received texts and e-mails saying it had.
    • We spent hours on the phone with Walmart customer service and were hung up on several times with no call backs ever made.
    • Any time we reached a person they told us that they would not refund the delivery and they would not re-deliver.
    • After requesting to speak to a manager multiple times just to be hung up on, eventually we were told that if my parents wanted their food so badly they would have to go door to door in their neighborhood to find out who got their delivery and ask them if they’d be so kind as to give them their food back. Door to door during a pandemic.
    • I REPEAT: DOOR. TO. DOOR. DURING. A. PANDEMIC.
    • We have tried repeatedly to get this remedied via phone, social media, even by e-mailing the corporate offices. We either get ignored or get told, “Too bad.” Or my favorite so far (from the social media teams), “Thanks for your feedback!”
    • Not only have they not refunded my parents, but they’ve charged them an additional random $210 that they refuse to refund or explain. My parents are on a fixed income and none of us have received our stimulus checks yet.
    • My parents have essentially paid nearly $400 for nothing but hours of stress.

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My dad is a vet recovering from a traumatic brain injury. My mother is disabled with only one functioning lung. Even if that weren’t the case, asking customers to go looking for their deliveries is ridiculous. Add in a pandemic and vulnerable customers on a fixed income and you have yourselves an utterly disgraceful situation.

Walmart has remained silent.

My parents are running low on supplies and can’t get a delivery from anyone. Trust me, we’ve tried. I’m getting so scared that they’re going to have to go out to get food, putting themselves both at extreme risk. Not only am I worried they’ll get the virus, but because of their disabilities I’m worried they could get hurt. Going to a hospital right now is not in their best interests.

Being this far away from them during this has been the most horrific experience of my life to date. Even though I can by no means afford it, because of what Walmart has done I’m debating flying to the US and getting a hotel for 2 weeks in hopes I don’t get my parents sick. Thank god for credit cards, I suppose.

I’m not sure what I’m hoping to achieve by posting this. Maybe if enough people get upset Walmart will at least attempt to do the right thing. At the very least, people should know what Walmart is doing to their most vulnerable customers during this. God knows what they’re doing to their employees.

For a company with already pretty awful PR, it seems like they’re more than happy to make themselves look even worse as long as it means more profits.