Mike
Radford,#2Consumer Suggestion
Sat, April 24, 2004
They won the lawsuit so they don't have to accept your debit card with a signature. If you use a signature, it will processed through Mastercard as if it were a credit card. Mastercard does not allow additional fees to be charged because someone used a Mastercard instead of cash. But if you use the PIN number, Mastercard is not involved. Instead it goes through an ATM network like Plus. ATM networks do allow extra fees to be charged, for example the owners of most ATMs (that are not owned by your bank) will collect an extra fee when you get cash. Wal-Mart has decided to charge an extra fee, maybe purely out of greed, or they want to recoup their cost of using the ATM network. They are hoping most people won't notice or won't care. When someone does notice, Wal-Mart's response was to lie and claim that a third party, not Wal-Mart, receives the extra fee. Lying to customers is just plain wrong. You should have left the merchandise on the counter and walked out of there. And don't look back. I haven't bought anything at Wal-Mart for nearly a year now.