Schlockly service at Warmart

A friend gave my wife two $50 VISA debit cards from Walmart. Supposedly as good as cash, the cards are actually issued by General Electric Credit.

When we tried to buy $95 worth of electronics at Walmart in Mountain View this afternoon, the cashier said the cards were unreadable. Had we made purchases on them? No, we had not. Well, we couldn’t use them. We asked to her to call the store manager.

A flustered customer service rep arrived. She couldn’t find the manager. In time, she called in the card numbers on her cell and told us each card had a balance of $48.12. (GE charges monthly interest on these cards!) However, our cards were no good; perhaps we should call the bank.

We said we didn’t want to call a bank. Walmart sold the cards. They knew they were worth $96.24. Walmart could call the bank.

She said friends had warned never to buy these cards. The woman behind us in line said the same thing had happened to her but shehad just let it slide.

The customer service rep found a superior who said they could exchange the cards for Walmart Gift Cards. Okay. Twenty minutes later, maybe thirty, we received the gift cards. The superior told us “These Debit cards are a lot of trouble.”

Why, then, does Walmart continue to sell them?

Perhaps to get into the banking business through the back door. In mid-2007, MSNBC reported:

Wal-Mart, furthering a lucrative push to offer financial services to its customers, will sell prepaid Visa debit cards that would allow millions of low-income shoppers who don’t have bank accounts to keep up with an increasingly cashless society.

Wal-Mart is following other retailers who hope to tap into a large pool of consumers who deal mostly in cash, but want the convenience of plastic. As the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart would be able to reach an enormous number of those consumers.

Three months after dropping a bid for a bank license, the world’s largest retailer said Wednesday it will add hundreds of in-store centers to bundle the financial services it already offers, such as payroll check cashing and money transfers.

On the web, I found these complaints:

“I tried customer service to no avail. I cannot speak to a rep. Where is the $27.34. It says I will get charged if I speak to a real rep. I could not even find a way to do that.”

“Try GE MONEY BANK website and tells me to go to Walmart.com then walmart tells me to go to the company that issued the card. DO NOT BUY THE WAL-MART VISA GIFT CARD EVER.”

“When I checked the balance, it said $0.00.  I was able to view past transactions and pending transactions online, but there were none, so I do not believe that I was given a used gift card.”

If this is representative, I hope these guys never get a banking license.