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Walmart Glitch Makes Early Christmas

Walmart’s website contained a lucky glitch for some online customers who wound up scoring huge deals, the kinds of deals only found in a buyer’s dream and a seller’s nightmare. The glitch affect...
Walmart Glitch Makes Early Christmas
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  • Walmart’s website contained a lucky glitch for some online customers who wound up scoring huge deals, the kinds of deals only found in a buyer’s dream and a seller’s nightmare.

    The glitch affected some of the pricier items, such as those found in the electronics department. There were items that are normally priced at hundreds of dollars listed as being under $10! Among some of the items were products such as computer monitors and projectors.

    An InFocus projector that is listed on other sites as being around $580, was accidentally presented as being $8.85!

    News about the deals spread quickly throughout the social media grapevine causing many of the unusually-priced items to sell out. But as quickly as the good news spread, so did the alleged rumors and fears that the Walmart site may be hacked, which would—if true–put the previously thrilled cardholders in financial jeopardy.

    Once news of the glitch got back to Walmart, they investigated the technological errors found on the site and assured customers that the site was not hacked. Ravi Jariwala, a spokesman for Walmart reported:

    “We experienced a technological error that caused some items to show incorrect pricing. We are working quickly to correct the error, and during this time there may be intermittent site availability. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers.”

    As somewhat comforting as the reassurance may be, people are now wondering whether Walmart will honor the glitch prices, because in case we’ve forgotten, this isn’t the first time technology has gotten a company into an interesting situation.

    Earlier this year, United Airlines accidentally sold several plane tickets for $5 due to a similar glitch. Whether members of the airline company were secretly scornful about the technological incident was unknown, but to the consumers’ delight, United Airlines agreed to honor the lucky purchases. So what will Walmart do?

    When pressed for the answer to this question, Jariwala reported that the company is still working on the details. In the meantime, many fingers will be crossed.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

    Other sources: USA Today

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