Wal-Mart customer harassed, arrested, and fined for using Wal-Mart money orders
We all just feel bad about this one. There’s not really much more we need to say here - Wal-Mart’s actions pretty much speak for themselves. We can only offer our condolences to the poor recipient of Wal-Mart’s customer service.
Nitra Gipson sold her car to pay for her last two semesters at Texas Southern University, where she is studying criminal justice (of all things), and was paid with Wal-Mart Money Orders. When she tried to cash these money orders at her local Wal-Mart she was arrested and charged with felony forgery — even though the money orders were real.
“Humiliating is not the word for it,” Gipson told KHOU news. “I was horrified. I think they singled me out because of the amount of money that it was and (thought) I was trying to get over on them.”
Nothing she did convinced the Wal-Mart manager to drop the charges. Finally, after 48 hours behind bars, the District Attorney’s office released her after she provided the purchase receipts. You might think that was the end of Ms. Gipson’s ordeal. Nope.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, June 12 | 6 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Partners with SAP On New Financial Systems
Wal-Mart has long been heralded as a leader in information technology. The company’s complex inventory tracking and employee scheduling systems have helped the retailer earn its record profits. It’s surprising, then, that the retailer announced today plans to outsources its financial systems.
The news comes several months after Wal-Mart was deemed “behind the curve” with its financial technology. A 2007 article from CIO.com blames Wal-Mart’s outdated information system for the company’s failure in South Korea and Germany, as well as the retailer’s past financial problems.
SAP is the lucky company tapped to take over the retail giant’s IT needs. Optimal Solutions focuses on what this means for SAP, noting that the deal will inevitably earn the systems company hundreds of millions of dollars, and not just from Wal-Mart:
This about face on packaged software represents a double win for SAP, for where the mighty Wal-Mart goes, other retailers are sure to follow.
And the process won’t be cheap. The cost of moving Wal-Mart’s massive databases promises to be expensive, and the notoriously-stingy company has decided to go ahead with the shift despite the cost. Information Age notes that the system won’t become profitable for several years. And though it’s increasingly clear that Wal-Mart’s systems need an upgrade, experts still debate the benefits of companies like SAP.
What will this mean for Wal-Mart’s other in-house systems? Will RFID soon become outmoded and cumbersome to replace.
Wal-Mart launches global IT system [Financial Times]
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, May 27 | 125 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Quietly Launches New Debit Card
With little fanfare, Wal-Mart discontinued its Wal-Mart-branded debit card last week, and launched a new card with different consumer traps attributes. BloggingStock’s Brian White gives a rundown of the new card’s features, and notes that Wal-Mart is now directly competing with banks, despite claiming it’s not interested in consumer banking.
The company claims these money cards help “unbanked” consumers - those who, for whatever reason, don’t have bank accounts. But as we’ve mentioned earlier on this blog, it’s just another way that Wal-Mart hopes to profit off poverty. If Wal-Mart was really concerned with its low-income customers, maybe it could try sustainable community investment on for size.
In this week’s Wal-Mart Weekly, I’ll be looking at the entry (although indirect) of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. into the consumer banking industry. While it may seem a stretch to think that Wal-Mart’s new debit card program is anything but a way to help consumers, it could be positioning the retailer as a new banking partner for many consumers as well as adding handsomely to the retailer’s bottom line.
You have to make money to spend money
Wal-Mart recently discontinued its Wal-Mart Debit/ATM card, but has now replaced it with a newer “debit card”. What’s the difference, you ask? Let’s break it down a bit.
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Posted by Media Team on Monday, April 07 | 1 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s Banks in Mexico Raise Concerns
Wal-Mart de Mexico is going forward with plans for a bank that were overruled here in the U.S. The company’s banking cards’ high interest rates have raised concerns among consumer advocates. But fairness aside, the company’s move is a clear double standard between unbanked customers here and those in Mexico.
Wal-Mart Rolls Out Bank in Mexico [Arkansas Business]
After failing to land a bank charter in the United States, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. took its plan south of the border.
On Nov. 12, Wal-Mart opened the first four branches of Banco Wal-Mart in Mexico. Banco Wal-Mart already has 22 locations and is expected have at least 80 by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart’s plans to open a bank in the United States appear to be dead.
Earlier this month, the Senate Banking Committee approved a bill that would prevent retailers from owning the sort of limited bank charters that Wal-Mart previously had sought, just as they are prevented from owning commercial banks. The bill now is headed to the full Senate for a vote, but a date hasn’t been set.
If the bank ban passes, Wal-Mart doesn’t appear to mind.
“There are no such plans at this time” to pursue a bank in the United States, Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Gardner said last week in an e-mail statement to Arkansas Business.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, February 25 | 3 comments | Permalink
Is the Bank of Wal-Mart Back?
For years, Wal-Mart has been trying to take over the banking industry by establishing the “Bank of Wal-Mart.” With an industrial loan charter from the FDIC, Wal-Mart could make huge profits from credit cards, mortgages and loans.
Thanks to concerned citizens, that hasn’t happened. After thousands of people contacted the FDIC in 2006, it placed an 18-month moratorium on all new ILC applications—including Wal-Mart’s.
Unfortunately, that moratorium ended February 1st.
The expiration of the FDIC moratorium opened the gate for Wal-Mart and other commercial retailers to apply for and obtain an ILC charter. In fact, within five days of the moratorium expiring on January 31st, Ford Motor Company applied for a charter.
The Senate Banking Committee is currently considering legislation to permanently block commercial retailers like Wal-Mart from having ILCs. Please use our simple tool to write a letter to the committee, and ask them to close the Bank of Wal-Mart loophole and pass this important bill. Click on:
http://action.walmartwatch.com/bankofwalmart
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, February 11 | 3 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Settles on Banks in Mexico
After failing in its efforts to open banks in the U.S., Wal-Mart has done just that at its stores in Mexico. The banks are targeting low-income shoppers, enticing them with a low minimum balance of just five dollars. Those promises are two-faced, though: interest rates on savings are lower than almost every other bank (at just 1%) and loans are at a staggering 75% APR. In doing this, Wal-Mart perpetuates a vicious cycle of poverty, a cycle which the retailer has come to depend on for its customers.
Wal-Mart gets its bank - in Mexico [Fortune]
For years, Wal-Mart tried to enter the U.S. banking business, but it gave up in 2007, pulling its application after endless outcries from domestic retail banks. Now it’s found a more receptive audience south of the border. In November, Wal-Mart de México opened its first consumer bank, Banco Wal-Mart, in Toluca; the company plans to launch 80 more by the end of the year.
Toluca, a sprawling industrial town near Mexico City, seems like an unlikely place for Wal-Mart’s maiden push into banking. But there, in a strip mall, beside a bakery and a beauty parlor, Norma Pacheco is mulling a Wal-Mart account. “I’d use it to pay for my Wal-Mart purchases,” says Pacheco, a 42-year-old engineer. “The brand gives me confidence.”
Pacheco isn’t the client Wal-Mart de México is ultimately after. Mexico’s biggest retailer, with 668 stores, wants to crack the low-income market in a country where just 24 percent of households have savings accounts, compared with 55 percent in Chile. Wal-Mart plans to boost sales via debit cards, later ease users into more profitable services like insurance, and make money on interest-rate spreads. Early signs are promising. Héctor Aguila, the bank’s manager, says that about 40 percent of the new clients who have signed up at dedicated desks in the store since the bank’s November launch have never had an account of any kind.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, January 29 | 6 comments | Permalink
Bank Of Wal-Mart = One More Withdrawal
What do Wal-Mart and Home Depot have in common?
In addition to their sprawling size, both retailers wanted to buy banks in Utah and have submitted applications to the FDIC for industrial loan charters (ILCs). This week, Home Depot followed Wal-Mart’s lead and made the decision to pull their application to purchase a bank in Utah.
Wal-Mart has been attempting to make their move into the banking industry for years. If granted, the ILC would have allowed the retailers to make profits from credit cards and loans, a move that would be devastating to our economy.
Home Depot has withdrawn application to buy a Utah bank [The Wall Street Journal]
Home Depot Inc. has decided to withdraw its application to buy a Utah bank, ending its plan of venturing into the home remodeling loan business.
The Atlanta-based retailer had applied in May 2006 to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp for approval to purchase EnerBank USA, a Salt Lake City industrial loan corporation. But the application was one of several sidelined by a Congressional brouhaha over whether commercial enterprises such as retailers should be allowed to enter the banking business.
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Posted by Media Team on Friday, January 25 | 20 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s Damage to Communities Far Outweighs Charitable Donations
Yesterday’s post on food banks raised the issue of Wal-Mart’s charitable donations and whether they actually benefit the community, but the question goes far beyond donations of food. Wal-Mart loves to be seen donating money to local charities, especially around the holidays. These donations, while perhaps beneficial in their own small way, don’t even begin to make up for the amount of resources and taxpayer dollars Wal-Mart drains out of local economies. For Wal-Mart, these donations are nothing but some cheap PR.
Wal-Mart lowers median wages, exports jobs, shifts company costs to taxpayers, and leans on public subsidies to make its billions. These costs far outweigh any local donation Wal-Mart has ever made.
Wal-Mart’s charitable donations continue to lag behind its close competitors, and the Walton Family itself is ranks only 37th on the list of generous donors. But perhaps more tellingly, is that Wal-Mart donates most to charities in its own best interest. From the National Center for Responsive Philanthropy:
“Behind the Wal-Mart facade, the goals of the company and the family have nothing to do with promoting the community’s or the public’s or even their customers’ interest. Instead, there is one goal, and that is to make one of the wealthiest families in the country even richer.
Wal-Mart’s donations to little league teams and nursing homes also pales in comparison to the company’s donations to non-profits, think tanks and individuals willing to lobby on its behalf or grant favors in return. In doing so, Wal-Mart buys the power necessary to continue harming communities and getting away with it. Think Wal-Mart’s generous? Maybe so, but only to itself.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, December 20 | 16 comments | Permalink
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