Call Kurtis: Feds Respond to Request for Walmart Investigation
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz responded in a letter to Senator Barbara Boxer's request to investigate what we found in our gift receipt investigation. He thanked her for bringing it to their attention. We uncovered Walmart doesn't always return the full amount paid when items are returned using gift receipts.
We and our sister station spent a total of more than $100 at Walmart stores in the Sacramento region and New Jersey, but received less than $63 dollars back when returning the items with gift receipts. Walmart kept $44.53 of our money.
"I thought it was more than that," a producer told the clerk while being shorted during our investigation.
"It probably was, but if you don't have a receipt with the actual price, I have to give you whatever comes up," the cashier responded.
We started looking into it after David Schmitz of West Sacramento was only offered back half what he paid for a present he bought, when he tried to return it at the West Sacramento Walmart using a gift receipt.
F.T.C. Chairman Leibowitz said in his letter to Senator Boxer federal rules won't allow him to confirm if they've opened an investigation, but, "I can assure you that the information you have provided and the concerns you have expressed are being carefully considered."
From the beginning Walmart has seemed to blame workers for not following policy. Walmart Spokesperson Lorenzo Lopez said, "We sent a high priority notification to store management to help ensure all cashiers and service desk associates know and follow proper refund processes."
Calling it the perfect rip-off, Sacramento Attorney William Kershaw filed a class action lawsuit in Federal court earlier this month against Walmart.
"Wal-Mart's scheme to defraud relies on the fact that people generally have good manners and would never ask how much their gift giver paid for their present," he adds. "Further, rarely does the recipient tell the person who gave them the gift that they didn't like it and therefore returned it. It takes fairly unusual circumstances for the giver or the receiver to discover that they are being short changed by Wal-Mart and even then, most people won't make a stink. So it truly is the perfect scam and 99% of people never know there's been a rip off."
He says as part the suit, he'll ask the nation's largest retailer to turn over records tied to billions of returns over the past several years to see how many others were shorted when returning items using gift receipts.
"We believe that information is available, and if it is, we'll be able to find out how much was overpaid and the people who overpaid it."
Kershaw's law firm is looking to talk with anyone who has returned an item at Walmart using a gift receipt in the past four to five years so they can investigate your case.
Boxer's office tells us the Senator plans to keep pressuring the FTC for a thorough investigation.
