Today started out innocently enough, I made a trip out to our local Walmart to look for a small stepladder to carry in my truck to assist in my kayak-loading (short girl problems), and some other items that I can typically only find at Walmart. The store wasn’t terribly busy and I found what I needed and got out rather quickly.
After loading my car, I decided to walk next door to Sam’s Club to inquire about a pretty amazing (to me) feature I’d heard about on our last camping trip – Scan and Go. You install the app, save your credit card info, scan the items as you shop, then hit Pay when you’re done.
Seriously, DONE!
No standing in line for six months on a Saturday behind everyone stocking up for the apocalypse? OMG This is the reason I only go to Costco for my prescriptions.
So I get in line at customer service to inquire, because with my luck, I’ll discover this particular store doesn’t participate, or some other annoying situation. To my relief, they did. Sign me UP! So they took my debit card and my awful picture and I went around to the other side of the counter to download the app and key in my credit card, with my friendly customer service rep coming to check on me periodically.
Soon I was off! I thanked her and was so tickled I went to get a cart, since now I was intent on buying something. I was having a ball until I came upon some protein bars that I wanted to scan the nutrition information and see how many points they were (another story). When I thought I was grabbing one box, I had grabbed two. They both flipped outward, and the box closest to me came crashing down on my face. The other box tore open at the top. Whoops.
Ouch! The side of my nose was numb and I pressed a finger to my lip hoping it wasn’t bleeding. It wasn’t, but I now have a decent scrape on my upper lip. As soon as the stars went away, I scanned the protein bars and adding insult to injury, I found they were 4 points each. Ugh..
So I continued my shopping trip with a numb nose and lip and was delighted to find a large refill bottle of hand sanitizer. I’ve looked everywhere for these, including searching online. Hand soap refill, tons. Hand sanitizer refill? Nowhere to be found. Now I can refill my smaller hand pumps instead of putting them in the recycling bin. Woohoo!!
The last item I happily scanned were Tiles, those small plastic “chips” that allow you to place a tracking device on anything you lose frequently. Because I spent a good amount of time looking for my car keys this morning, into the cart those went as well. They were a great price at a 4 pack for $19 something.
Beep! Scanned.. Hehehehe.. Okay, time to check out! I was having fun…
Until…
At the bottom of the app is a green bar, Swipe to Pay. I did. Waited. And was greeted with “Please go to a register. Unknown error.”
You. Have. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
The whole entire reason I joined Sam’s was this service. To NOT have to stand in line. And now I have to stand in line.
I deleted my credit card and tried another one, thinking maybe there was a bank issue. Nope.
I got on the Sam’s Club wifi and tried again. Nope.
At this moment in time, I felt like Camille Cosby, when she came downstairs and saw that Bill had fed their children chocolate cake for breakfast.
“And fire shot from her eye sockets and began to burn my stomach!!!”
I was so mad. After a moment, I composed myself (not really) and got in line. Luckily, just one person ahead of me. The cashier made the mistake of asking me how I was.
I didn’t tear her head off, but I did share my frustration. This was the WHOLE REASON I just became a Sam’s Member! Maybe I wasn’t in the system yet? Customer Service never mentioned that being an issue. The cashier checked my app and also verified I was on the Sam’s Club wifi, which I was. She was extremely friendly and tried to help, but no dice.
As she scanned my items, she scanned the Tiles and asked me if I wanted the extended warranty.
I saw the light bulb go off.
She explained that it was likely the Tiles that caused my transaction to not go through, because of the warranty “pop up”. It made sense, and I could feel my blood pressure going down. If I hadn’t bought those, my order would have likely gone through with out an issue.
So.
I knew that this service doesn’t work with alcohol purchases for the obvious reasons, but I now will be prepared if I purchase anything else that may have a warranty. I’m HOPING that was the cause.
I’m looking forward to my next trip and hopefully getting to use it!