^ here's my Wal Mart story. I was actually all set to buy one of their laptops, an Acer in fact. I had been looking around online to see who had good deals and what was out there. The Acer at WalMart was actually about $500. But I didn't see any specs listed anywhere. Since I had to do some work right next to a Wal Mart, I stopped in one day to talk to their "highly trained technical crew" and no one could tell me what size RAM the ACER had. No one, not the sales people, not the manager. So I went back to the web site and noticed they had some deal going if you bought a "big ticket" item by Jan 22, and put it on a Wal Mart Credit card, you could pay it off in 24 months interest free. GREAT! I ordered something around $1000 (thinking if I could pay it off interest free over 2 years, I could go with something a little better) and applied for a Wal Mart credit card. I wont go into my screwy credit situation, but I got an email later that day that I would have to reorder AFTER my credit was approved, blah blah blah... the NEXT day I got a call from someone barely speaking English who asked me some questions to verify my identity and told me I had been approved and would get my card in 5 days. I asked if I could order the item at that time, he didn't know. I asked if he had a number I could call to order that item, no he didn't. How could I prove I had been accepted for credit, he didn't know. ....oy....
So 5 days passed and no card. I looked in that section of the website for a customer service number for the credit card. They didn't have one. Have you ever heard of a credit card company with NO customer service number? So I was starting to think maybe this wasnt such a good idea.
I combed through all of the fine print on the credit ap page looking for a hint of who to call about the card and noticed something else that worried me. Even though in big HUGE letters it had advertised interest free for 24 months, and later it had promised no yearly fee, in the fine print it said something like *fin chg apls if not pd in 6 mo*..... hmmmmmm. Interest and finance charges are not the same thing? No of course they arent. But I found this to be VERY deceptive. How many people probably charged big ticket items like computers and big screens and so on thinking they could pay it off in 24 equal payments and not pay any other fees? And in 6 months, they will have to start paying finance charges every month on their unpaid balance.
So I went back to Wal Mart and asked for a credit application to see what it said and if there were any customer service numbers listed. I got to speak to the highly trained in store customer service people this time. Wal Mart does not have "hard copy" credit applications, it is all done electronically. There is an instore kiosk to enter information and be approved. There is no way for a consumer to get a copy of what they are applying for and to read the terms, etc. How many Wal Mart customers do you think carefully study something they are doing instore? At a Kiosk? Probably with others waiting?
So I asked at the store for the credit card customer service number and guess what? They didn't have it.
There was something just wrong with all of that, so I decided WalMart was probably NOT the place I want to get credit and/or buy a laptop. Unless I know in advance what I want and they are the cheapest and I just pay cash for it.
mm
Oh! The card finally came in the mail... the day AFTER the special no interest ended. I called the activation number and kept pushing 0 until I finally got to talk to a human. I told the barely English speaking person to close the account. Hopefully they did....