You Could Be Owed Money If You’ve Returned a Walmart or Sam’s Club Purchase
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Click to sign up - text the word Hip2Save!Walmart has landed in a bit of hot water!
If you happened to return an item to Walmart or Sam’s Club at some point over the last five years you may be entitled to receive compensation as part of a class-action lawsuit!
The lawsuit raises an issue pertaining to customers who made returns between July 17th, 2015 and November 25th, 2020 who were not refunded the sales tax that was originally paid on the purchase.
While Walmart has not admitted to any wrongdoing, they have agreed to a $5 million settlement that will be divided among the eligible claimants after all the legal fees have been deducted.
To submit a claim, all you have to do is head here by April 1st and submit your information merely stating that you meet the eligibility requirements as having made a return and not receiving the full value of your return including the sales tax. No other proof or receipts is needed.
There are no exact or estimated payment amounts available yet. The final amount will be determined by how many people submit claims for the lawsuit pending the final approval hearing which will take place on April 21st.
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Thanks for sharing this! I think you meant sales tax not income tax😄. It’s late and it’s been a really long year so I get it! Here’s wishing you a happy, healthy New Year!!🎉
Thanks for catching that, Mom2boys! Happy & Healthy New Year to you, as well! ❤
I did and I fussed about it when I returned it. She had me call corporate and they said they’d send it to me with in the next two weeks. I never got it (and it was over $5). Not the end of the world, but annoying, bc if they did that to everyone they’d have a small fortune. Evidently they did and now someone did something about it!
I had something like this happen to me at The Children’s Place before. I would order online and ship to my house. Then, return things in the physical store in a different town with a lower sales tax rate. Every single time the refunds were less than I paid. For some reason no one could tell me why I wasn’t getting the sales tax I paid back. Albeit, pennies, but if they do this all over/to everyone it adds up!
I was going to say the same! I never noticed until I returned the only item I ordered and noticed it was not the same (paid vs. refund)
same here…
@jennd if you return an item to an area with a lower sales tax, they can’t refund the higher tax rate- they can only refund as high as their sales tax (but if you return to higher area, you will be refunded the rate you paid, bc they can only pay up to the local rate)- it’s the same at all stores- part of the cash register system… I have had the same happen at target- the only super targets are a city over (vs our small target), their sales tax is 1% higher, once I got something at the super target that I returned locally and that’s what they told me 🤷🏼♀️
Three times now I have begun a return on line as directed by their website. But when I arrived at my local store with the items I was told that they had already been returned. Sure, I left with the merchandise I did not want, but never got my refund at all. Great for the Salvation Army, but not for me.
There is absolutely NO WAY that this was not intentional. Zip. Nada.
Buh-Bye, Walmart!
I had to take a second look, did I just see Lutz? My home town! Now for those that don’t know, when I lived there, there was no Wal Mart and there was only one traffic light in the whole town. Man how times have changed. LOL
Oh its quite built up now. Walmart has been there years. Its Also close to other more builtr up areas.
*built
Wow! I wonder if Disney Store is doing the same thing, because I purchased something online and decided to return to store (that way I wouldn’t have to pay the shipping fee to mail back). Somehow my return didn’t add up to what it should have been in total. Hum??
I raised a stink about this a few years ago and they weren’t willing to budge at all. It was so frustrating to me and I am glad Walmart will have to do something about it finally.
I’ve definitely had this issue!
I’ve also purchased things in one state and returned them in another and was refunded less than what I paid due to different taxes. I wonder if that would qualify, too?
This happened to me at Dicks Sporting Goods. But I stood my ground and the manager fixed it for me.
same @ stein mart. they are all doing it. found out they charged cali taxes which are some of the highest.
I guess I’ve been lucky. I have always been refunded sales tax when i have returned something to walmart.
I used to work at a department store, and there was a button we had to push to change the return sales tax – counties all over the state were very different sales taxes, now they are pretty close to all being the same……
We have always had a problem with Walmart and returning things between NY and NJ. There is no store near us in NYC, so we take back where ever we happen to be. We always tell them that the tax is different before they start the return. My friend was told at Kohl’s she had to wait 3 days to get the tax back so that the original sale can be “processed”. We always explain that you COLLECT sales tax, not charge sales tax. It is a multi million dollar scam for these stores. They are all computerized so it should be no problem.
Yep that happened to me this year… The cashier couldn’t get rid of me soon enough I knew something was suspicious because of the look on her face and demeanor during the whole transaction, but I never thought about it till I got home. Only received purchase amount only, no taxes!! No reciept
I argued about this many times years ago with Target. Im thinking first time was maybe about 18 or more years ago so think about how that adds up across all of the Target stores after many years of doing it. Sad it took so long to fix that fact that consumers were being ripped off.
BedBathandBeyond has done this to me, too. Less than a month ago…. Sigh.
Just happened to me at a Michaels store. I only noticed because it was the only thing purchased. Then I have just accepted it since then at other stores. Now it makes my kind of angry that so many stores across America are keeping millions of peoples money for no good reason. I’m sure it adds up to an astronomical amount of money. Wow!
I always got so mad when they did this and wondered how they got away with it!
I live in a town with 3 different tax “zones”, so this happens a lot. Walmart is the worst about it since they happen to have a store in all 3 zones.
If they’ve only agreed to $5 million and that amount doesn’t increase think most people will get a settlement of 5 cents or less. It is the principal of being overcharged though and I get that.
I’ve always wondered how it was legal for them to do this!
I have done lots of returns at Walmart over the years but cannot say for sure re not getting the correct amt of sales tax back. I typically ensure that the purchase and sales receipts match but sometimes we only rtn 1 item on a receipt. Since I cannot answer that question with certainty, I have declined to add my name to the Claim Settlement.
Walmart did the opposite to me. I bought a bunch of groceries there, no household or bathroom items, no ready to eat food either. But they charged me sales tax. There’s no sales tax on groceries in SC. They did it several times, and I figured out it was a particular box of ice cream pops that I bought alot, that was triggering the tax. I contacted them, quoted the SC tax law, and they couldn’t care less. I even reported them to the state tax fraud dept, but that hasn’t gone anywhere either. What a waste of time. I try to stock up on that item at Kroger, who correctly doesn’t charge sales tax on it.
Thank you so much. I just returned something for over 100 dollars. What a shame…Of course, no one admits wrongdoing.
Interesting. I have actually had the opposite event at Target. Bought on line and returned in a different county (but closest location to me) and actually got back about 1% more than I had paid.
I noticed the last time I did a return that the receipt that they give you doesn’t list anything other than the amount refunded- no items listed, no price per item, no tax listed, just the total. How can you tell what they’ve done or if it’s correct? I had several small items and I think it was correct but no way to verify it.
yup, they keep the itemized receipt which i find shady. i returned some clothes that didn’t fit & know for a fact i was short changed, i pointed out to them & insisted they returned the correct amounts 😞
I have not shopped at Walmart in 15 years because of this kind of stuff. I always stood my ground and took back my receipt, it is my property, not theirs. If they want a copy, they can make a copy. Any major store now days can push a few buttons and get a copy of the receipt, that is why there is a bar code on it. – Remember if they keep it they can refuse to return anything else on the receipt because you do not have it.
MI has a law if the store scanner charges more than the marked price, then you get the difference and 10x back or up to $5. I would always check my receipt before leaving to make sure I got charged right because they always marked the shelf one price and charging another. One of the last time I shopped at Walmart and had to return something, the CS rep told me that the law was changed and no longer valid. I asked for proof, she searched moving things around, and never really looked. I pulled out the law, (a card that my mom gave me) and I said “I can prove that there is a law” The manager eventually caved and gave me the money but swore, I would never get it again (yes the threaten me). Interestingly, I do not get overcharged that often (I go years without being overcharged vs every trip) at the stores that I shop at now, and when I do they give me the refund and law amount without me asking and if I have to ask, they do it.
My SIL joined a couponing club and learned how to coupon, then headed to Walmart to get her groceries, 2 to 3 carts full. She would leave paying little to nothing, sometimes they paid her a few dollars. After a few trips of not paying anything, a store manager walked up to her as she was leaving and told her to never come back.
That is UNREAL about your SIL!!!
What is your proof that this did not happen? I have seen my SIL receipts and had first-hand experience of being threatened by a store manager at Walmart. So I have no doubt that she was told not to come back.
You’re an internet stranger that could work for Walmart and just trying to save Walmart’s reputation, with no proof at all that any of it was “unreal”. It may sound unreal but unreal-sounding things happen all the time.
Before I made my last trip to Walmart to return a few things, I watched a few DVDs from Netflix on Walmart. One of them was called “Walmart: the high cost of low prices” which can be found on Youtube. It was a real opener on how “Unreal” Walmart really is.
(Ironically there was a class-action suit with Netflix and Walmart, years ago, It seems that Walmart told Netflix that they were going to start a DVD mail rental service if Netflix continued to sell DVDs. Netflix agreed and closed down the sale of DVDs. The class action won and Walmart had to pay Netflix customers.)
I literally sat on a chat with Walmart once, when this happened over a fairly small amount of money, because I was irritated that they were doing this to people on a clearly grand scale. I told them small pennies for each person adds up to millions of dollars, and if they don’t fix the mistake, it will end up with a class action law suit by someone. Welp….
I had this happen at TJMaxx a few times, that I know of. Who knows how many times it happened, before I noticed it. Very frustrating. Again, I am one person and if this happens to many of us, it adds up to a lot of money that they keep.
Thank u, H2S, for these kinds of posts. I would have never known about such issues otherwise. Thanks for always looking out for us consumers.
Yes this has happened to me before and the manager even changed the price of the TV on me 😡 I was so angry i had to leave before I went to jail
I remember seeing this a while back and was hoping I didn’t miss the cut off date to submit a claim. I just re-read the paragraph and it said the claim needed to be submitted no later than April 21st. I hit the link to begin completing the claim form and got a message stating they were no longer accepting any claims and that all claims should have been received by April 1st. Did anyone else receive a message similar to the one I received? Thx!
“Submit a Claim – Closed
The deadline to file a claim was April 1, 2021. We are no longer accepting claim submissions.”
Bummer! I’m getting that message as well. Thanks so much for the heads up!
walmart said that a refund was made to a nonreloadable visa card because this was made on a card that was none reloadable the card was destrode
Hey Steven! Thanks for letting us know. I have had gift card returns go back on another gift card when getting a refund. Hope that’s helpful.❤️