Complaint Review: Wal-Mart Store - Dayton Ohio

We wrote a check to the Wal-Mart vison center on Friday 3/30. On Sunday 5/6 (9 days later) one of my checks was denied at Krogers. After calling the tele-scan company they told me that Wal-Mart had reported us for writing a bad check.

I took the information they gave me and contacted my bank. They confirmed that we did not have any returned checks and in fact the check in question had never been presented to them for payment. I aquired a letter from my bank stating this along with a bank statement for the week in question to show our balance was above the amount of the check during that period.

I took with me all the information supplied to me by my bank and went to Wal-Mart. The asst. mgr. must have made 10 calls trying to find out what had happened. We were first told we had insufficient funds and that our bank returned our check, then I produced the letter from our bank so she continued to make calls. After about the 5th call we found that not only had they reported us to tele scan but they had also reported us to a collection agency. This occufed within a 7 day period - no letters or phone calls were ever made to us.

After speaking to the collection agency they told us we would have to fax all info to them - so we did. Later we find out that only Wal-mart can fix this - but they told us no, the collection agency would have to handle it.

We even tried to pay the amount of the check with cash since the check never got to our bank, but Wal-mart wouldn't take our money. When I tried to pay the collectin company they wanted me to pay fees, which I refused to do. On the second trip to Walmart they did take the money without fees.

Telescan said that Walmart would have to contact them to clear the matter with them, but the associates at walmart said they did not make calls about such things.

We cannot write checks at retailers that use telescan until this is cleared up, and even if Walmart makes the call to clear it up it may take up to a month. It will show that we wrote a bad check on the records for telescan even though we did not because Walmart will not call them to explain.

We did get to the bottom of the problem - the scanner could not read our acct. # - so they send us to collections and block our checking acct. & debit card?

We called and went in to see the store mgr. (Mark Divis), be he neither returned our calls or bothered to walk to the front of the store to see us (we waited almost 25 min. before we were told he was too busy to see us).

I have sent a detailed letter to the customer service in Bentonville via e-mail, but as expected have gotten no response.

As it stands, Wal-mart made a horrible mistake which has affected our ability to use our bank accounts as well as sent us to collections which may show on our credit report - all because they couldn't get the check to run through the scanner correctly.

I would love an explanation as to why this happened in this manner. I would also like a guarantee that the matter is cleared up and that the our credit will not me affected. I also would like the agencies that they notified to be told that the report given was false. Unfortunetely the only people who will talk to me at walmart have no power to do any of this.

We are at the mercy of the big box giant and we did nothing but gave them business. We did get a half-hearted sorry about this from one of the asst. mgrs. I told her that would work if she forgot to put my shampoo in my bag - but not for such a mistake as this.

Anita

Vandalia, Ohio
U.S.A.