I got a $10 off promotion code in the mail last month and I decided to try it out to see if it was worth the hassle. I’ve got disability issues which keeps me from driving, so I do my shopping by other means. I live close enough to a Krogers, so I could hike there if I need to, but usually I take the bus or maybe an Uber or a Lyft.

But using pickup at Walmart, you need to be in a vehicle to utilize it and of course only the locations across town from me offer it.

Now, I have tried grocery delivery before, but not grocery pickup. I got a free trial with Shipt when I was recovering from a surgery to remove my gall bladder last fall. It was a big help to me and they even extended the trial period by several months, which earned them extra points in my book. I hate when companies nickle and dime their customers, especially new customers who will reward them back with their loyalty for years.

I’ve recovered and the weather is back to being nicer, so now I just do my grocery shopping the old fashioned way. But ten bucks is ten bucks, so I hit up a friend of mine for a ride to try it out (mostly to use the promo code) and to see if they chalk up the prices like Shipt and Instacart do or if they are worth it.

The prices seem to be the same as going into the store, but I noticed that they don’t carry all the items in their grocery app. There were a few items that I regularly bought from them missing. I found that odd, considering the overhead of a database entry and a few jpeg’s don’t exactly break the system. The shoppers use the same isles to pick those items that I do, so why not list them?

But, there was nothing missing that was of any consequence so that wasn’t a big deal. They also have a policy that if they have to substitute anything that’s not in stock when they pick it, you get an item “the same or better” at the price you were quoted.

I wish Shipt did that. There were times when they substituted items where they said it was about the same price, but since their system includes a price bump my new item was a buck or two more. No big deal, but it’s a pain.

Since Cinco de Mayo was this weekend, I ordered a Great Value generic item (cheese sauce picante dip) from Walmart. It was not in stock, so they included a name brand (Tostito’s) sauce for $1.98. No big deal, but the little niceties can add up.

Now for the bad part: I ordered this for pickup on May first. I got a call that morning saying their system was down and they were unable to process any orders that day. There was a system-wide outage, but the news never picked up on it because it didn’t involve a Mueller Report or a royal baby.

In order to reschedule for another day, they had to cancel my order and I had to re-place the order in the app. I would have liked them to just rescheduled it in the system on their end or to allow me to do it myself in the app, but the system was never setup that way. (Thanks Walmart programmers….) On the plus side, when she canceled the order it put my items back into my cart so I did not have to put them back in myself manually.

Since I had a promotion code, when I placed the order again it refused my code (because it was now considered redeemed). I called their 800-number and the agent I talked to claimed that when “the bugs in the system” were all fixed, it should should magically work again. I highly doubted it, since if that was to happen it would have done it when the order was cancelled.

So I e-mailed my complaint to their e-mail address listed in the app. They responded that night and gave me a replacement $10 promotion code. I placed the order for the next day and all was right in the world…until the next morning.

I got a call from my friend. She was sick and and needed to reschedule for Friday. Not a problem, I was able to go into the app and reschedule my pickup window for Friday afternoon. However, Thursday evening we touched base and she was still dealing with nausea (I don’t want to use the words “throwing up” on my blog because I am a fucking gentleman), so we decided to just reschedule for a Monday pickup so she could recover over the weekend.

Now this was Thursday night at around 7 p.m. I went into the app and now I am no longer able to reschedule this. I guess you are only allowed one reschedule. This same app was telling me that I could add and remove items from my order still (until 1:45 am Friday morning), but it would not allow me to reschedule it. There was not cutoff time I had surpassed and they had not started processing my order: They just wanted to be a dick and keep me from changing the window again. This was 18 hours before my pickup, so the window would have been available for orders being placed in the morning. I was not ruining a sale for them or causing their products to be wasted, they just didn’t want to let me do it. (Thanks Walmart programmers….)

I called their 800 number again, the agent said I missed a cutoff time (lie.) so she would have it reschedule. She called the store and had them switch it to my window on Monday manually. When I checked on my order, it still showed for Friday in the app.

Friday morning I called them back again and the agent confirmed it was rescheduled, but they couldn’t update it in the system because it was past the cutoff time (more crap).

I called the shoppers at the store myself, they confirmed they did reschedule it for Monday, but they would process the order Friday when the system told them to and then hold it until I pick it up Monday (hopefully in a refrigerator and a freezer).

Some of my order may not be so fresh after the weekend (my romaine lettuce, guacamole, my deli prepared sub sandwich, etc.) I expressed my concerns on this, but she claimed it shouldn’t be an issue because “they always pick the orders days beforehand”.

I didn’t quite buy it. I don’t want to have a 3-day old sandwich about to expire because they just couldn’t reschedule the processing of the order until Monday. Some people may feel I am making a big deal deal about this, too nit picky. But being told some lame excuse just to get the customer off the phone is a real thing. I know, because I worked at customer service for Comcast. ‘Nuff said.

So now I am waiting for Monday pickup and I will have to examine a few things to see if they are close to being spoiled. Not exactly the carefree ease they present on the commercials. I guess Batman gets a little more respect as a customer then regular old me.

I suppose, looking back on it now, I should have just told them to cancel it and then just jump through the hoops yet again to get yet another replacement promotion code and then place my order yet again. There just comes a time that you just get tired of all this rigmarole. I mean, it’s just fucking groceries! I could have just gone to Krogers and be done with it, but I wanted to see the experiment through.

The items that I will be looking at closely at stuff I was going to use the the weekend anyway. Since that is gone, I don’t feel guilty refusing those items and getting a refund on those things.

No need to celebrate Seis de Mayo, right?