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Walmart Gets Scammed by Online PS4 Sellers

Walmart Gets Scammed by Online PS4 Sellers

Walmart has always had a price matching policy, which guarantees that they always have the lowest price on the market. The idea is that if you can find an advertised price, the retailer will match that price on whatever product they are selling. A couple ambitious scammers used this against Walmart by using Amazon.com. Basically, they created a seller account and offered a PS4 for less than $100. They would then show their own advertised price. This, of course, would make Walmart match that insanely low price, allowing the scammers to pick up a PS4 for cheap.

Usually, these listings were false or listed as out of stock, but even if they were not false and actually offering to sell their PS4, this scam could be used to turn a profit. Simply sell your actual PS4 for cheap, and then pick up multiple PS4s for the same price. Then you can sell these PS4s back at a much higher price to places like Best Buy or Gamestop, or even off eBay.

As a result, Walmart has changed its price matching policy in order to avoid fraud.

“We launched online price matching because it’s the right thing for our customers,” Walmart said in a statement. “It’s making a meaningful difference for people who want to feel confident they’re getting the best price, and we’re committed to matching online prices going forward.

“At the same time, we can’t tolerate fraud or attempts to trick our cashiers. This kind of activity is unfair to the millions of customers who count on us every day for honest value. With this in mind, we’ve updated our policy to clarify that we will match prices from Walmart.com and 30 major online retailers, but we won’t honor prices from marketplace vendors, third-party sellers, auction sites or sites requiring memberships.”

Walmart Gets Scammed by Online PS4 Sellers

This has made some legitimate customers angry, as it reduces their ability to shop around for the best deal. It may cost Walmart some business, as people start turning to discount and wholesale sites to get holiday purchases. However, the change in policy probably will make up for that revenue loss, depeding on how widespread this scamming has become.

The policy is not final though. Walmart has said that it will be tweaking the policy as it moves forward. The company’s policy-makers will be listening to their cashiers and customers in order to find a policy that works. Even tiny things, like not honoring mis-prints and requiring price-matched items to be in stock, will go a long way to reduce scamming. However, that might also turn people away who went to Walmart when they couldn’t get the console that they wanted on sale somewhere else.

What do you think? Should Walmart honor these prices? Should it still honor prices of lesser-known sellers or online auction houses like eBay? Do you think it’s going to save or lose more money as a result of their policy change? More importantly, will you be shopping at Walmart for video games this holiday season? Let us know in the comments.

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