Comments on: Why Wal-Mart Will Refuse to Sell You Prepaid Cell Phones

By: Stella

Stella — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 18:20:01 +0000

Well, I was a bit disappointed by the end of the article, but it was a fun read. What I had the best laugh about was the writer pointing out the fact about how (tongue-in-cheek of course) that if he was a drug dealer, he would certainly follow all the rules and not go down the street or to another store to buy more! LOL!

Great point, but at least the policy keeps stores from being totally out of stock on popular models (at least for a little while).

Our WalMart has now stopped selling the prepaid refill cards. I don’t know why, don’t know what the scoop is, and WM won’t tell me. You can’t buy them (at least Net10) from WM online now either. Not sure if this is only Net10, or if there was a problem with the cards. Either way, it is a pain in the rump.

By: rsmit9

rsmit9 — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 23:54:56 +0000

Maybe they should stop selling more than 2 rolls of aluminum foil and 2 bags of plastic baggies as well. Just saying

By: Allen

Allen — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:44:52 +0000

Yes some sick people use them for making I E D’s LOL! It is laughable that anyone would think that limiting the number of sales form a store would hamper them at all. WAKE UP! It is ALL about their bottom line period. At any major city area anyone could collect hundreds of these phones in one day with just a few people.. I alone could go to a dozen of the retailers that sell these and JUST getting their limit of two, get 24 in may area in about a hour.. Now place 4 people in a car each getting two at each stop. Hell if the author of this article had 3 other people with him each getting the same amount he did – that’s 24 and I’m sure that was just stopping at stores close by, if he would of did a bit more driving around (especially in a large metropolitan area) you could easily get 100 a day; times 6 days = 600 phones a week…. Idiots still make I E D’s with them and poor souls loose their lives to them – and to use this as an excuse for out right greed is sickening…. And for those people out there who will comment that poor Walmart will loose money on that – Walmart seems to have no problem losing money on items they sell when they do it to undercut a competitor to run them out of business…

By: jp

jp — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 01:42:23 +0000

radio shack limited because it was a black friday deal not because of law. it is a profit thing for stores.. target lets you buy four (4), wal-mart (2) because the phones are cheaper for purchase than the company pays for them so that you the consumer will go there and buy it and the minute cards that are highly overpriced from what the company paid for them. so basically if you just buy a phone walmart losses money.. if you buy the phone and the minutes to add to it and continue to come in and buy minutes for the phone wal mart is cashing in and making a profit

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:03:45 +0000

I have been purchasing phones from straighttalk.com recently and they also only allow 2 phones to be purchased at a time. They also seem to have a daily limit of 12 phones per address per day. I thought maybe my credit card was being declined so I tried using a different card and it would not go through as well. Today I ordered more phones again and was automatically cut off at 12 again.

By: obviousadvice

obviousadvice — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 20:01:08 +0000

WHAT I WANT 2 KNOW IS – How did the survey work out??
Which pre-pay was the best? Why did U think so. ….and how come I keep reading about the Walmart/T-Mobile phone plans, and can’t seem to find anyplace that sells them (as of 2-day [12-11-10] neither the walmart website, nor the T-mobile websites seem 2 offer them.

By: robert

robert — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 20:03:03 +0000

THE SOLUTION TO THIS IS SIMPLE. GET A COUPLE PEOPLE OF TO GO WITH YOU NEXT TIME , YOU BUY TWO ,AND YOU GET YOUR FRIENDS TO BUY TWO EACH, AND TELL THE CASHIER OR WHATEVER THAT THESE CELL PHONES ARE GIFTS, AND THAT THEY’LL BE ACTIVATED LATER BY THE OPERATOR. OTHERWISE BUY YOUR CELL PHONES ON EBAY AND RECYCLE TECHNOLOGY INSTEAD OF WASTING IT ON “BLING”.

By: beckie

beckie — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 15:03:51 +0000

That has to be the worst policy ever, phone dealers and drug dealers are probably more coniving then the average joe, if they want the phones they’ll find a way, weither they bring someone in the store with them to buy 2 phones or they have someone come in 2,3,5 hours later to do the same thing. In the end its all pointless and they are only screwing legitamite customers that have 3 or 4 kids and a spouse

By: Phil Ossifer

Phil Ossifer — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 03:20:14 +0000

Ever hear of a company called “Gillette”? King Gillette made razors and sold them at cost, knowing he had a lock on the sale of blades for them. He made millions selling the blades. AFAIK this was the first time someone tried this technique which so many emulate today. Screw the phone, make money on activating and feeding it!

By: khan

khan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:14:22 +0000

Its day to day thing since I am related to cell phone industry. I used to take friends to help me buy more than two. Now there is a new law a group of people cant buy more than 2 phones.

Is it a federal law or not ?, cuz the reps / managers always point at a board saying its a federal law. I been browsing for hours cant sight any federal law of that sort.

I think other businesses have bench marked wal-marts policy.