Wal-Mart Burns Another Customer

A story recently surfaced about a Florida woman who bought a pair of flip-flops at Wal-Mart. She bought them a few months ago, but when she started wearing them for the first time recently they began to burn her feet quite badly. You can read her story on her website. We warn you, the website has some pretty graphic and disturbing photos of the burns on her feet. The Consumerist also ran the story.

After contacting Wal-Mart HQ, the woman - a former Wal-Mart employee - recieved rude service and basically no help. She was told that this was not Wal-Mart’s problem because the shoes, like so many products in their stores, came from a factory in China.

This irresponsible action on the part of Wal-Mart is inexcusable. Expecting a consumer to explain her situation to a Chinese factory representative is far to much to ask. Maybe Wal-Mart deals with China so much that they assume the rest of us do, too.

Wal-Mart could have issued a recall: it didn’t. It could have at least investigated: but it didn’t. It could have contacted the manufacturer themselves, and demanded that the factory stop producing dangrous products: it didn’t. We’ve seen this story before, in issues of food safety or hazardous toys. There’s nothing wrong with lowering prices - but endangering consumers is inexcusable.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, July 23, 2007

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COMMENTS

Must Be a Slow News Day, huh Ezra?

There’s not much significance to this story. This Florida woman made 3 mistakes:

1. She bought a pair of flip flops
2. She bought them at Wal-Mart
3. She worked for Wal-Mart

End of story!

ScrewedbyWal-Mart in Anytown, America
Monday, July 23 at 02:03 PM

These Daisy flip flops of death have obviously killed someone. Quite significant, I’d say. Or maybe Daisy flip flops of severe allergic reaction wasn’t snappy enough.

The comments on the Consumerist site pretty much covered it all.

tjc in NY
Monday, July 23 at 02:42 PM

Is THIS What the Battle Against Wal-Mart Has Been Reduced To?

Gimme a break! I’m just as much a skeptic when Wal-Mart puts out misleading and inflated information as I am when WMW or anyone else tries to use a story like this to bolster its case.

Something appears to have happened to Kerry’s feet...no doubt. But “severe chemical burns?” How about some kind of allergic reaction? How about a severe sunburn? Yea...that’s right....SUNBURN! Maybe Kerry applied a liberal dose of sunscreen on her feet while she was wearing her flip flops. Then she goes to the beach and lays in the sun for 6 hours...with the flip flops off. She may have forgot to reapply suncreen to the areas that the straps covered on her feet, thereby getting a sever SUNBURN...not a “chemical burn.”

Besides… I will only go to battle against Wal-Mart so far. When I see idiots like the poster above make statements like “toxic foot terrorists,” ALL credibilty is lost.

Even the title of this thread is misleading...” BURNS ANOTHER CUSTOMER” Who? Where? How many other customers did this happen to? Remember the woman who found a human finger in her Wendy’s Chili? Never Happened!

ScrewedbyWal-Mart in Anytown, America
Monday, July 23 at 04:21 PM

OMG, I almost fell of my chair!!! ScrewedbyWal-Mart actually made a post that is logical and completely accurate. I need to go take my heart medicine now <g>

Mary in
Monday, July 23 at 09:15 PM

Screwed,

Your post is right on the money—my first thought was why didn’t Kerry ditch those things as soon as her feet began to turn red?

Also, if you’ll look carefully, the shoes in the picture look as if they were worn for a little while…

Bill

Bill in
Tuesday, July 24 at 07:17 AM

Dadgum, if I don’t have to agree with the comment made by Mary giving some accolades to “Screwed by Wal-Mart”.

Well young lady even if you believe you were “screwed by WM”, somewhere along the line,at least in this thread you have written the truth and also exactly as I felt when I read.

The Sage in
Tuesday, July 24 at 03:47 PM

“Flip flops of death” is a tad over the top.

Wal-Mart Gives Customer a Hot Foot!

All this concern about toxic materials in clothing and toys is trivial. Wait until an outbreak of some disease is traced back to a Third World TB infested ((cough)) sweatshop.

Ken V in Texas
Thursday, July 26 at 01:15 PM

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