Who Else But Walmart:  Part CLXXIV

This isn’t an editorial, so much as it’s a rant. It’s kind of long. TLDR: Walmart is the worst.

Back in July of 2021, I did what most TVC collectors did (or tried to do). I pre-ordered a bunch of the just-announced Walmart exclusive Clone Wars Microseries figures. There was a short, and sporadic, window of opportunity to catch the figures as they were inconsistently popping up online after the planned launch time. As such, I ended up placing 7 orders, containing a total of 25 figures. In hindsight, I definitely over-ordered, a proclivity about which I recently wrote.

Now, at the time I placed the orders, I knew that I was moving into a new house by the end of the year. I had a bad experience with Walmart back at the end of 2020, because I had previously pre-ordered the VC177 Din Djarin and The Child sets, and then unexpectedly and abruptly moved from New Jersey to Phoenix. They shipped just days after I left, and I tried desperately to have them rerouted, but Walmart is the worst, and they refused. I was lucky that I had contact with the person that bought my house, and managed to have a family member pick up the packages for me, and then ship to Phoenix.

Having pre-learned from this experience, and pre-knowing that I was supposed to close on my new home in December, I cleverly pre-entered my future home address for shipping in my account profile in the Walmart app before pre-ordering the Clone Wars figures. (I think George Carlin just rolled over in his grave.) After frantically managing to pre-order what I wanted, I double checked and realized that I mistakenly put “717 West” instead of “717 East” on my street address.

So I emphasize here that the initial issue was definitely my fault, as I obviously entered the wrong address in my profile. I believed I had it right, but since the home wasn’t built yet, and nobody was living on this street, it must have made a suggested change to West, and I blindly accepted. No biggie, as I’d just update my address in the app. Turns out you can’t apply the change to existing pre-orders, so I both chatted and phoned Walmart trying to get help, and they all told me to kick rocks. “It isn’t possible,” they said. Meanwhile, I had successfully updated my shipping address for every other pre-order I had pending from Pulse, Amazon, Target, Sideshow, Gentle Giant, BigBadToyStore, and GameStop. Walmart stood alone and said, “Absolutely not,” with no reason given.

I didn’t panic. I waited a few months, and tried contacting Walmart again (several times), hoping for a different outcome. No dice from any of the different people I spoke with. One of the reps apologized for the inconvenience and suggested I could cancel and then reorder. I explained that the items were sold out pre-orders. They all seemed sad for me as they repeated there was nothing to do.

So I banked on waiting for the items to ship, and then trying to work with either FedEx or Walmart while the items were in transit. I had learned there was no actual house at 717 West, so after a delivery exception, I should have been able to make the change. But rather than wait for the inevitable failed delivery attempt, I tried contacting FedEx late this past week as everything was shipping in another attempt at a reroute. After speaking with a couple of FedEx reps, one finally told me that Walmart.com has a contract for all FedEx shipments stipulating that only Walmart, as the original shipper, can change the address. So I contacted Walmart again, and tried several different reps, and all of them were sad when they were unable to make any changes, and that the packages would eventually be returned to Walmart.com at which time I could get a refund.

I should mention that Walmart broke up my orders into 9 packages, 7 of which were shipped via FedEx, and 2 via OnTrac. I contacted OnTrac directly, and incredibly, they promptly updated my address. This emboldened me, so I again contacted both FedEx and Walmart after 5 of the 7 FedEx packages failed to deliver to the incorrect address. After a couple of hours, I finally got someone at Walmart to provide actual help. He said he could not change anything himself because the shipments originated from the fulfillment center (FC), and only the FC had the ability to request a change via FedEx. This guy promised me he would not only contact FedEx directly on the chance that asking them to reroute all 7 packages might work, but he would also contact his FC’s and ask them to do the same. Incredibly, this actually worked. I noticed that the 5 packages that failed the first attempt now listed “updated address information” in their tracking, and the status changed from “held” to “out for delivery.”

The next day, my two OnTrac packages were marked as “delivered”. Frustratingly, there were no packages at my home. Several attempts to get resolution only got me, “Our records show both were delivered to your requested corrected address,” and that my only option was to take it up with Walmart.

That same day, 4 of the 5 FedEx packages that were being held were delivered to me successfully. I got my Battle Droids, Bariss Offees, and a single Red ARC Captain. For the record, about half of these 12 cards arrived mint-ish, the rest were damaged to different degrees, but nothing outrageous. The 5th package, somehow, was on its way to El Paso. Sigh.

On Saturday, I noted that the El Paso package was on its way back to Phoenix. As for the other 2 FedEx packages that had been in transit to Phoenix at the time I made the address change request with the one helpful Walmart guy, they did not show as having updated addresses. Again I called FedEx and asked to make the change. This time the FedEx rep obliged and made the update on the fly. I tracked the progress as out for delivery all morning, and then suddenly they both said “Delivered”, but at the same moment, “Package retrieved.” I immediately called FedEx again and asked for an explanation, and the rep assured me that the packages were not left at the incorrect address (which, again, did not exist) and would be rerouted to me. Unfortunately, tracking on those packages ceased to update as they were locked in as “delivered”, so I’d have to cross my fingers and hope they showed up the next day - along with the El Paso package.

The next day, which was yesterday, I got a phone call from FedEx Ground asking me to confirm my address, so they could deliver one of the misrouted packages to me on Monday (today). I asked about the second package, but she said, “they only gave me this one, but I’ll be on the lookout.”

So we’ll see if FedEx comes through on the last 2 parcels they have in their possession. OnTrac, not so much.

As this article is published Monday morning, here is the current situation:

Saga duration: July 21, 2022 - ongoing.
Hours logged corresponding via phone, chat, and email to Walmart, FedEx, and OnTrac: approximately 8.
Status of shipments:
-FedEx Package 1 (4 Battle Droid): Delivered
-FedEx Package 2 (4 Battle Droid): Delivered
-FedEx Package 3 (3 Bariss Offee): Delivered
-FedEx Package 4 (1 Red ARC Trooper): Delivered
-FedEx Package 5 (4 Blue ARC Troopers): Delivered
-FedEx Package 6 (2 Red ARC Troopers): Potential delivery today
-FedEx Package 7 (1 Red ARC Trooper): Potential delivery today
-OnTrac Package 8 (3 Ayala Secura): Lost
-OnTrac Package 9 (3 Luminara Unduli): Lost
Deadly creature sightings in/outside/nearby house in 2022: 5

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