Behind The Blue Door: What you should know about Walmart surveilance polocies

hebegbes
Well, this just sounds like a class action waiting to happen. I hope some attorney runs with it. I'm not a proponent of class actions. The attorneys just get richer and the plaintiffs/claimants walk away with a $10.00 coupon or something nominal. But actions like this by a corporation like Walmart need to be addressed, somehow. That's absolutely astonishing information. Thank you for the post.

I hear wal-mart is impossible to sue. I had a friend who six month old child who was injured, including a broke arm, when the photographer in the portrait center let the baby fall off the stand thing while they were posing the baby. No lawyer would take the case. The parents were told, no one can sue walmart, they have too many of top lawyers in the world.

reply to post by Joki42


Why the f#^* would a competitor give Walmart any info? That's ludicrous. If I owned the store down the street and Walmart called me asking about my customers let alone asking about their private purchases. I would tell the dude on the phone to go f himself. Then I would notify the customer whom theyvwereccallingvabout if I had their contact number. I'd also volunteer to be a witness in a Tort lawsuit against Walmart on behalf of the customer. Walmart ruins lives. And it mangles the spirit of anyone who works there.

reply to post by Joki42


I can corroborate most of your story and give some supporting evidence. Remember in orientation signing the doctors release? I broke a tooth and went to the ER and got some pain meds till I could get to a dentist. When I called LP at the DC to let them know I wouldn't be in, they told me to call HR in the AM. When I did the HR rep said I couldn't work while taking Hydrocodone anyway. I asked how she knew what I was taking? She said I had told her. Ummm, nope I was sure I hadn't.
There was also the issue with cameras EVERYWHERE, and the overwhelming cult mentality.
My Ops manager actually told my in my 90 day I should put walmart before my own family cause now I was part of something bigger.
In orientation your given tons of stuff to sign, confidentiality agreements, no compete clauses, direct deposits, Dr. release forms. They try to get the new hires to put their paychecks on a walmart green dot card. That alone would make tracking employee purchases easy.
And you all may Never shop at walmart directly, but having worked in shipping and receiving at a walmart distribution center most of the food your buying is coming through walmart! You want to look into monopolies, start with walmart meat and produce. When you go to your local Shaws, Star, Smiths, or Piggley Wiggley, chances it came through walmart distribution.

Really, really creepy place to work.

I am calling BS on the access to bank info, I work for a CPA, and while doing audits, the hoops we have to jump through to even get balances on accounts are ridiculous. Walmart has access to their own records, but they cannot access anything else. If they could, this would violate every banking regulation ever.

ETA: I don't have any sort of bank account, use a Walmart prepaid debit card for my online transactions, anything else I do, is done in cash. My records, even with Walmart would be pretty boring.

I'm sorry, but everything in this persons post is complete crap. I won't say where I work in Walmart, but I can vouch 100% that Walmart does not have access to your bank records and does not "track" anyone. Walmart also does not "investigate" associates for shopping at other stores. I work at the home office and most if not all of us frequent other retail establishments because our founder encouraged us to go out and see what other companies do better than we do. This post is complete trash and a bunch of fabricated lies.

reply to post by LadySkadi


There is an employee pay card that you can opt for. It works like a debit and your paycheck is directly deposited to it. This can be checked for types of purchases. What I witnessed from the LP manager was acces throught the Walmart internal LP system to customer bank statements: where they shoped, how much they spent, and deposits into their account. This process was explained to me by the LP manager as he was conducting an investigation. I was not givin details as to how it was done. The manager would recieve a white slip of paper with details of a purchase or return or a time and cash register number. He would pull up the number of the card used and then enter a new screen where all account details were listed with the cardholders personal info. He would study this for a long time and then, on occasion, call a store that was not Walmart and share his findings with the store manager.

Happy dance, I was lucky not to have to do those.

reply to post by Joki42


This is incorrect as well. The only card that Walmart monitors is the associate discount card and that is because so many associates absolutely abuse it.

beautyndissonance
reply to post by Joki42

 

This is incorrect as well. The only card that Walmart monitors is the associate discount card and that is because so many associates absolutely abuse it.

Maybe the naysayers and the OP are correct - is it possible the store he/she worked for has some access to outside records, a weird policy that the other stores know nothing about? None of what the OP says surprises me though.

reply to post by Aleister


Unless they operate on some super high tech secret system that the store funds and pays for then absolutely not. All stores use the exact same SMART system for inventory and transactions. You can believe me or not, but I work at the Home Office, and have intimate knowledge of this area of the enterprise.

reply to post by Joki42


Disturbing-

reply to post by redhorse

What is the point?

Deterrent.

The majority of retail theft is committed by staff ... often before product even reaches an outlet. They're just looking to stop theft where they can.

Bellor
Dont how it is in America, but in the UK if you tried to access someones bank statements without something like a court order your pretty much going to get arrested. Thats highly illegal.

Walmart has more money than every law maker around. They will do what they want.
Firepiston

redhorse
reply to post by Joki42

 

I have to admit to being a bit skeptical here.

I don't know about looking at your bank statement, but something I know WM does is take your photo at the checkout stand and tie it to your debit card, check, credit card or whatnot. That all gets burned onto DVDs and sent to corporate.

If you're in LE or part of an intel group, they use WM data all the time. You get a lot of people that make the mistake of going to a wally after their particular crime, if you didn't ID them at the scene, a fast pass through the WM photo search engine will often turn them up tied to a name and a locale.

iwontrun
I can corroborate most of your story and give some supporting evidence.

I can't speak to the OP's experience. What I can do is tell you what happened to me.

I took a contract in NW Florida repairing some rental property. I was in Marianna, Florida one day during lunch and I went to the local Walmart for a deli lunch. I was wearing jeans and had a typical pocketknife/tool in my lefthand pants pocket. I had well over 500 tools and powertools (quite literally) in my service truck in the parking lot.

The man behind the deli counter made a smarta** comment about me having a pocketknife in my pocket. I told him I was no "terrorist" and he shouldn't worry about it. I took my order and left.

Later that week, I was at the deli again. This time, the same deli-guy was screwin' around for 10 minutes while I waited for my order. Then, a new customer walks up and the deli-joker fills his order immediately. I said out loud "screw this" and walked out of the store. A few days later, I was back at Walmart again in the veggie department. A manager (LP?) made a bee-line for me and asked me what I was going to do with fresh fruit. I explained juicing to her and she left me alone.

Personally, I believe they are using surveillance AI to ID their customers. Second, I would not use any credit/debit card in their business if I had any alternatives.

I was in Walmart a few weeks ago and was looking in the electronics section. I noticed this tall black guy chatting with the sales people at the counter, a slow moment it seemed. Well about 5 minutes later this same guy was tailing me from aisle to aisle, pretending to look at merchandise near what I was looking at. Well I had LOTS OF TIME that day and so I spent the next hour and a half slowly browsing every aisle in the store, even long after he had gone away back through those doors in the back of the store. I ended up spending about $100 but it was odd, that was the first time I have Ever noticed store personnel tailing me. (I'm not a shoplifter).

Why people are so surprised at what corporate businesses can do with peoples information?

Is call Data mining, right now the NSA does it all the time, or people have forgotten about that scandal soo soon

Remember that the NSA while working under the government is mostly run by private interest companies under contracting.

So just remember that this days data mining is very profitable, most corporate businesses are doing it.

Just another day in the land of the freak, I mean free.

reply to post by LadySkadi


No it is not disturbing, Walmart has no access to anything like the OP lays out, totally bogus thread.

reply to post by beautyndissonance


To beautyndissonance:

You work at the "Home Office" in Bentonville. Most of the persons I have met that worked there really have very little information on how the stores are actually ran. I worked for them for 7 years and can attest to most of what the OP says.
They are able to track shoppers who use debit cards or credit cards in their stores only as well as shoplifters who steal from one location and return the products to another location.
They DO hire under cover employees to watch shoppers. They are only allowed to approach a suspected thief once that person has passed the last point of sale....if visual contact was maintained throughout the crime. They cannot physically touch or coerce a customer but may alert the authorities and attempt to detain the shoplifter with non-physical means.
My Store Manager/Director once had me followed home to see if I was spending time with an employee outside of work.
They maintain a huge set of books that detail every step that must be taken in the event that it is believed a union is speaking with employees.
I was forced to cover an accident that injured another employee. Said employee was forced to take a pay cut and eventually terminated.
I was forced to lie on official reports required for safety. I was forced to send employees on break after they had been at work less than ten minutes and force them to stay late or coerce them to leave early to avoid overtime. I was forced to work in other areas of the store because management would not properly staff the store.
It was a TERRIBLE experience. And I have a HUGE amount I could add to all this.

I can believe every word the OP wrote. I had a couple of dear friends who got hired in the same position. One was retired a retired police officer. He told pretty much the same story, saying that WM had far more access to client and employee data than even law enforcement. Neither of them lasted the first year and won't go near a WM.
I was told that they put cash customers in a special file that is regularly turned over to LE as "possible drug dealers" because only "someone with something to hide would use cash."
I haven't set foot in one of their stores in over 20 years.

reply to post by Bedlam


This is all a lie. Walmart does not openly give customer data to intelligent agencies. Walmart will only turn over surveillance footage of a customer if a crime was commuted by that customer on Walmart property. This entire thread and these butt hurt former associates are spewing so much scuttlebutt it's hilarious. Walmart isn't above the law, and the countless lawsuits that we lose annually prove that. We actually pride ourselves in doing whatever we can to protect customer privacy. Cameras are 100% for shrink purposes. Also, the guy below that said he was followed after work for having a relationship with a coworker is complete garbage. There is no policy that says that co workers cannot date as long as they are not in a direct reporting relationship to one another, this is the policy with most major company to deter favoritism. I really hope that most people don't actually believe that this kind of stuff goes on. Yes walmart has loss prevention associates that work "undercover" to prevent shrink, and that helps keep costs down, but they don't track anyone and definitely do not violate countless privacy laws by openly submitting customer information to government agencies.