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 | 7 comments | Permalink
Save The World…Or Shop At Wal-Mart?
Gerry Braun, a columnist with the San Diego Union-Tribune, has managed to simplify the Wal-Mart dilemma by asking one very basic question: Would you undermine civilization as we know it in exchange for some cheap groceries?
Braun finds something very satisfying about heading to Wal-Mart and saving $2 on a bag of Starbucks coffee. Yet, between finding parking in Wal-Mart’s mega-sized parking lot and attempting not to get lost in the nearly five football fields worth of retail floor space, Braun also makes some personal observations about a large class of San Diego voters who make the drive out to the Palm Desert supercenter - “folks who won’t buy the argument that higher prices promote a healthier economy, and will welcome Wal-Mart supercenters to the city as long as they go in someone else’s neighborhood.”
Vote to save civilization or a couple of dollars? [San Diego Union-Tribune]
A stimulating after-dinner amusement, popularized in the board game “A Question of Scruples,” is to pose an ethical dilemma to your friends, and then compare answers.
For instance: Would you lie under oath to prevent a heinous killer from going free?
Or: Would you accept a huge pay raise if it meant your co-workers’ salaries would be cut by 15 percent?
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, July 10 | 18 comments | Permalink
China-Made Goods Hard to Avoid
An article from the AP as well as a new book attempt to forego buying goods from China - with little success. The recent recalls of and bans on Chinese goods has revealed U.S. consumers’ dependence on cheap, foreign-made products.
U.S. family tries living without China [CNBC]
Lamps, birthday candles, mouse traps and flip-flops. Such is the stuff that binds the modern American family to the global economy, author Sara Bongiorni discovers during a year of boycotting anything made in China.
In “A Year Without ‘Made in China,”’ (Wiley, $24.95) Bongiorni tells how she and her family found that such formerly simple acts as finding new shoes, buying a birthday toy and fixing a drawer became ordeals without the Asian giant.
Buying China-Free Products a Hard Task [Associated Press via Forbes]
Whether U.S. shoppers are concerned about food and product safety, set on making a political statement against outsourcing or simply intent on showing a little patriotism, they’re sure to have a tough time avoiding products made in China…
We moved a couple aisles down to Wal-Mart’s toy section and found tons of products originating in China, including action figures, vehicles, stuffed animals and games.
Packages of Hot Wheels miniature cars, once a U.S.-made icon, now read, “Made in China, Malaysia or Thailand as marked.” Matchbox cars hail from either China or Thailand.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, July 02 | 69 comments | Permalink
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