For years I have boycotted Walm-mart because of their slave-shop labor practices and other sissues that I won't get into. However, my car came with a wal-mart battery, and when it ran out under warranty, I got another one from them for free. I used to always get them from Sears since they used to be everywhere, and have real automotive departments, but about three years ago I decided that I'd go with Wal- mart for their batteries since they are everywhere, and when you have a bad battery, that is a good thing.
However, I might change that policy of mine for the following reason. I bought a 2 year free replacement battery from them about 2.5 years ago. It says right on it that after the free-=replacement period that battery is pro-rated over a 72 month time period. My battery died last week, and when I went to replace it, they only gave me nine dollars back on a 67 dollar battery. My math indicates that I should have gotten almost 28 bucks credit to the new one. So when I bought the battery, they charged me a nine buck core charge. I asked the cashier how to get my pro-rate back. She told me to take my old battery to customer service to get my "pro-rate" back. However, once there, they told me that it is their policy to give everyone with a battery out of warranty but in the pro-rate period nine bucks flat rate. I then looked at my reciept and noticed the nine dollar core charge. I pointed out to them that a core charge and a pro-rate are not the same thing. They insist that the core charge that they refund to a person bringing in a battery is a pro-rate.
That is not a pro-rate though. That is just a core charge. In fact they even call it a core charge, and charge it to you on the reciept when you buy the new one. So in effect, they didn't give me a pro-rate at all. This is their policy though.
So in short they are not delivering on their promise of pro-rating their batteries. Not that I am one to go sue over crap like this, but I'm surprised that some high-strung lawyer hasn't pounced on this and created a class-action lawsuit. It's cut and dry theft in my eyes.
Am I out in left field here? I have had multiple pro-rated things fail and wound up getting my fraction of their advertised value applied to the replacement.
Thoughts?
Bill