Since starting this blog I have been contacted by readers many times with questions about couponing, Frugal Living, Walmart’s policies and procedures, and various other little things. I figure if one person is wondering about it, there might be others so this will be an on-going feature to answer the most common questions that come up. If you have a question, please check out the master list of Ask A Walmart Expert articles to see if your answer is there already or contact me and I’ll do what I can to help you out.
How Do You Deal with a Poorly Trained Walmart Cashier?
Every week you readers contact me through FaceBook or email telling me your stories about poorly trained Walmart cashiers. Some of the stories are funny, some are maddening. Recently one of you told me about a cashier that refused to price match because Walmart doesn’t take competitors ads. THAT”S WHAT PRICE MATCHING IS! Ah…good times.
Anyway, we’ve all been there. You know you are right, they think they are right and no one is budging. So what do you do? Here’s help.
Stay Calm, It’s Not You
The simple facts of the matter are that Walmart pays cashiers minimum wage and there is a lot of turn over. Chances are that the cashier you are dealing with has been on the job for less than 6 months. Typically it’s around the 6 month mark that good cashiers are given more responsibilities that take them away from the front line and bad cashiers are encouraged to find opportunities elsewhere.
The cashier you are having issues with probably isn’t out to get you or keep you from saving money, they just don’t know what a couponer or price matcher is and don’t know how to deal with you.
I would start by calmly explaining the Walmart policies and tell them that you do this all the time. If this isn’t working, time to go to step 2.
Get the CSM Involved
The CSM is the floor manager over the cashiers and is usually a more experienced cashier. In my experience, about 80% of all couponing issues are resolved right here. Typically, the CSM has seen their fair share of coupons and price matches and know what to do.
Just keep in mind that the one thing that most CSMs are not allowed to do is take a coupon that won’t scan. This was a change Walmart made to their couponing policies a little over a year ago. If it doesn’t scan, Walmart won’t take it. Be sure that if you are using printable coupons that they are clear and the bar code is in good shape. Also, try not to fold your Qs across a barcode, sometimes that crease makes them more difficult to read.
Go Home and Contact Corporate
The fact of the matter is, if a cashier wouldn’t take your deal and a CSM wouldn’t take your deal, you aren’t getting that deal done. At this point you need to start making sure you learn everyone’s name, get those products taken off your ticket and just finish up the rest of your shopping trip.
Walmart has a contact page here that you can use to let them know what happened. They are usually very good about getting back in touch with you quickly and getting things resolved. Or you can try 800-WALMART but expect to be on hold for a while.
Just as a side note, you can also contact me and tell me what happened. Sometimes it helps to get a second opinion on exactly who was wrong in your particular scenario.
Make Sure You Follow Up With the Store Manager
This is crucial to stopping future problems. If the Store Manager knows what happened, they can take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Here’s hoping for the day when all cashiers know all their policies and execute their duties flawlessly! 
Cia Henderson
Aarn:
Ive been couponing for a little over 2 years and so far I have only had two bad experiences with Wal-Mart cashiers. Both times I had a coupon clipped from the Red Plum, in the first instant the CSM was able to quickly resolve the issue.
In the other I had juice coupons, out of a stack of 5 one would not scan, she looked at the coupon looked at a part of the bar number and declared all of them copies. She then proceeded to remove every coupon from my shopping order. I asked her to call the CSM who agreed that the 1 coupon of 50 was not scanning because it was a copy of another coupon. After trying to prove that the coupons were clipped from the newspaper and not copies. I cancelled the entire trip and left the store. I later called the Store Manager who asked me to return to the store. He looked at the coupons saw they were all originals asked me to do my shopping again and gave me a $20 gift card.
If the CSM doesn’t solve your problem go to the Store Manager.
Aarn Farmer
Awesome story! Thank you for sharing.
Reveneal O'Brien
Reading your post, working as a cashier, your heading is poor training, yet you slam the individual cashier, who doesn’t even know what they don’t know yet need too, if training is the issue then it is not the cashiers fault, however, I have had many couponers get hostile and wave copies of the policies direction or in my face when there had been a point of divergence of interpretation
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