Walmart Sells PS4 Consoles For $90 In Price Matching Scam
Savvy scammers found a way to take advantage of Walmart’s generous price matching policy after the retailer announced that they would also honor prices from select online stores.
The Inquisitr reported Walmart’s announcement on November 13 that the retailer was expanding its price match policy to include not only Amazon, but other online retailers as well. Unfortunately, anyone with a seller account can set up an Amazon sales page and it didn’t take long for someone to figure out how to use that easy access to run a scam against Walmart.
And although the price match guarantee states that misprinted ad prices will not be matched, apparently someone didn’t bother to verify the Amazon page below — and that’s how customers managed to get $400 PlayStation 4 consoles for less than a hundred dollars.
Someone set up a this fake seller page on Amazon, advertising a PS4 for $89.99, and scammers were quick to jump on the opportunity.
Reports of the fake page began to circulate on Reddit and Twitter when a few users posted that they were picking the consoles up at Walmart for the fake Amazon price.
LMAO Amazon and Walmart jig just got ps4 for $97 pic.twitter.com/pEIKsCvdHN
— Taahaa Mobeen (@taahaa8) November 18, 2014
The link to the Amazon sales page was posted and the news spread like wildfire on social media. Several people reportedly got the deal of a lifetime on the expensive game systems, and CNBC reports other Twitter and Reddit users posting receipts as late as Wednesday documenting prices as low $89.99. Others claimed to to get an XBox One and games for $100 using a similar scam.
It didn’t take Walmart and Amazon long to catch on, though, and (unverified) pictures such as this one began showing up on Twitter Wednesday morning.
Walmart PS4 Amazon Price match was a failure for me… pic.twitter.com/a6GHth8jOp
— Niuqauj (@RisingGoesHam) November 18, 2014
A Walmart spokesperson told CNBC Wednesday afternoon that the price match policy had been updated due to the fraud. The policy now states that Walmart will no longer honor prices from marketplace vendors, third-party seller, auction sites or sites requiring memberships.
Walmart also issued a statement saying the retailer “can’t tolerate fraud or attempts to trick our cashiers.”
“This kind of activity is unfair to the millions of customers who count on us every day for honest value.”
Amazon has also shut down the sales page and it now displays a message that the game consoles are “out of stock.”
According to the Huffington Post, this isn’t the first time scammers have used Walmart’s price match policy to profit from the store. Last year, Michigan and Pennsylvania residents were arrested after abusing the price match and coupon policies by using high-value coupons on lower-cost items in order to net cash “overages.”
[Images via The Retail Judge and Kotaku]
