Walmart News

Based on the number of readers writing us from all over the country with almost the exact same complaint, we suspect that a thieving hacker somewhere in New York City is enriching himself at the expense of Walmart MoneyCard holders. Even worse, Walmart appears to have done nothing about this.

Linda P. of Farmington, Missouri, wrote us on Sept. 2 to complain: “[S]ome man in Brooklyn, New York, got my Walmart card number and made a duplicate card through Walmart's system. That man stole every penny I had on my card and Walmart allowed it to happen. He spent MY money that I earned at a Target in Brooklyn, New York [….] When I called Walmart, I explained to them that the money on that card was all I had for another month. I asked them if they could give me a voucher for food, or drinks. They said NO! […] I may lose everything I have and all Walmart has to say is ‘wait until the posted date’? This is unacceptable. Thank you, Walmart, for ‘guaranteeing’ my money.”

Kelly L. of Canton, Ohio, posted a similar complaint on Sept. 13: “I have had my Walmart money card for almost a year now [….] on 09-09-2013 I woke up to check my account and the balance was $1.41 […] the day before, there were 5 purchases from a Target store in New York [….] I am waiting for [Walmart] to send me a new card so I can get the amount owed to me, then I am closing my account.”

Similar problems

Two Californians reported similar problems on Sept. 15: Paul H. from Downey said “I just got paid Friday and deposited most of my check on my Walmart money card. Bought a few groceries with the card, went home and paid my Sprint bill, all was well. The next day on the way to the park I stopped at the Walmart neighborhood market to pick up some things for the grill, at check out my card was declined [….] I thought I would check my account on my phone. After signing in I saw a balance of zero, I thought, what the hell? I checked my transactions and saw the swipe reload, groceries, Sprint and three charges from Target. [….] Once they saw those New York charges and saw that that same day I was making charges in California they should have stepped up and said we know this is a problem and we will get it resolved. But we'll see what happens; I've got a feeling it's not gonna turn out good for me.”

The same day, Jackie S. of Citrus Heights reported: “I have had a Walmart money card in Sacramento California for the past 7 years [….] this past Friday I used my card at Starbucks early Friday morning; by the time I went to pay for my lunch my whole account was wiped clean. After calling Walmart, they said that somebody in New York, New York used it at a Target when clearly I'm in Sacramento, California; they say I can file a claim but it's going to take probably 45 days to get my 1,500 dollars back.”

Despite the frequent mention of Target, there’s no evidence suggesting that company has anything to do with this scam; it’s simply where the hacker or hackers chose to spend their ill-gotten money (there being no Walmart stores in New York City).

What to do

Walmart has not yet responded to a request for comment. 

If you’re a Walmart MoneyCard holder whose account has been hacked, you should immediately contact Walmart (via email rather than over the phone, so you’ll have an electronic paper trail of your complaints), and also contact your local police department to determine how to file a fraud complaint. 

Retailing giant Wal-Mart has entered the online contact lens business. Wal-Mart, the world's largest company, already sells contacts in about 1,800 stores and is now promising quick turnaround on online orders.

The announcement coincides with Congressional consideration of a bill that would require that sellers of contact lenses verify the accuracy of the consumers lens prescription with the optometrist or ophthalmologist who wrote the prescription. It would also require that optometrists and ophthalmologists provide contact lens wearers with copies of their prescriptions.

About 34 million Americans wear contact lenses. Wal-Mart's immense buying power enables it to offer rock-bottom prices, making it a threat to other players in any industry it enters.

Those most likely to be hurt by Wal-Mart's latest move include local optometrists, established online contact suppliers and chain stores such as Pearle Vision and Sterling Optical.

Wal-Mart says that orders filed with its Web site will be filled within one to two days and the lenses will be shipped either to the customer's home or to the local Wal-Mart store's vision center.

Contact lens brands available on www.walmart.com include Johnson & Johnson's JNJ.N Acuvue and Acuvue 2 and Focus Dailies, made by Novartis AG's NOVZn.VX CIBA Vision unit.

H.R.2221, the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act, was introduced by Rep. Richard Burr (R-NC). Burr says its major goal is to require eye doctors to give patients their contact lens prescriptions. (Currently, eye doctors are only required to give patients their eyeglass prescriptions).

Additional provisions include:

• Set a 1-year floor for the expiration length of a contact lens prescription and allow state flexibility beyond that requirement. (States have varying expiration lengths from 1-2 years.)
• As found in the current eye glass rule: a) eye doctors cannot require payment for the release of a prescription and, b) their liability on the content of the prescription is not waived by releasing it to the patient.
• Make it against the law to represent that patients can receive prescription contact lenses without a prescription.
• Require the FTC to study the different prescription verification processes around the U.S. and report back to Congress in 9 months.
• Define "contact lens fitting" and "contact lens prescription."

Testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Federal Trade Commission said it supports the goal of promoting greater competition among contact lens sellers and enhancing consumer choice.

Competition among contact lens sellers benefits consumers through lower prices, greater convenience, and improved product quality, said Howard Beales, Director of the FTCs Bureau of Consumer Protection.

In 1988, the FTC challenged advertising restrictions on eye care goods and services by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Optometry concluding that the restrictions didnt serve any legitimate purpose and were anticompetitive. The agency ordered the board to stop restricting the advertising, thereby increasing competition among sellers, and reducing costs and increasing choice for consumers.

Increased competition among sellers through advertising, however, does not benefit consumers if the claims made in the ads are false or misleading, Beales said. To prevent such claims from being made in the marketplace, the FTC sued sellers who made deceptive advertising claims for eye care products.:

The testimony cites recent settlements with two of the largest LASIK eye surgery services that bar unsubstantiated claims that the surgery eliminates the need for glasses or contacts for life and that LASIK surgery is less risky than wearing contact lenses. Our cases have enhanced the ability of consumers to make better-informed choices concerning eye care products, Beales said.

Crime rates fell across the United States in the 1990s. But in counties where Wal-Mart built stores, the decline was slower, a new study finds. 

"The crime decline was stunted in counties where Wal-Mart expanded in the 1990s," says Scott Wolfe, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and lead author of a new study. "If the corporation built a new store, there were 17 additional property crimes and 2 additional violent crimes for every 10,000 persons in a county."

The study, released last month in the British Journal of Criminology, was co-authored with David Pyrooz, assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at Sam Houston State University.

The study was not intended to criticize Wal-Mart, he says. Instead, it attempted to answer the unexplored question of whether Wal-Mart could equate with either more or less crime.

"There have been dozens of studies on the 'Wal-Mart effect' showing the company impacts numerous outcomes closely related to crime. Our objective was to determine if the Wal-Mart effect extended to understanding crime rates during arguably one of the most pivotal historical periods in the study of crime," Wolfe says.

The "Wal-Mart effect" is a catch phrase for a wide range of effects -- some good, some bad -- when the company opens a new store. It includes the suburbanization of the local shopping experience and lower prices for everyday items, as well as eroding local retailers and driving down local wages.

3,109 counties 

Wolfe and Pyrooz based the study on 3,109 U.S. counties. They focused on Wal-Mart's expansion in the 1990s, a time of dynamic growth for the company and falling crime rates nationally. During that decade Wal-Mart expanded in 767 of those counties.

The researchers suggest that there may not be a direct cause-and-effect relationship between Wal-Mart's presence and crime rates.

"They are very strategic about where they build stores," Wolfe said. "There is something unique about the counties that Wal-Mart selects."

He said that during the period studied, Wal-Mart tended to expand in counties with higher than average crime rates. These counties were more likely see Wal-Mart build even after accounting for crime-related predicators, such as poverty, unemployment, immigration, population structure and residential turnover.

The researchers speculate that much of this relationship occurred because Wal-Mart finds better success building in communities that are less likely to protest the company's arrival.

"Counties with more social capital — citizens able and willing to speak up about the best interests of the community — tend to have lower crime rates," Pyrooz said. "Counties with more crime may have less social capital and, therefore, less ability to prevent Wal-Mart from building."

Wolfe and Pyrooz say the reason why Wal-Mart lessens a decline in crime is a complex question not easily answered by data typically available. Their findings didn't reveal that Wal-Mart growth corresponded with increases in poverty, economic disadvantage or other factors associated with crime.

"More research is needed to uncover why the Wal-Mart effect extends to crime," Wolfe says. "Does it reduce community social cohesion or simply increase opportunities for theft and other crimes in specific store locations that are great enough to influence county crime rates? These are questions that remain."