1st World Problems are Real

Hello dear readers, long time no blog!

I have a ton to say, all the time, but clearly don’t feel like sharing so much.  Most of it is political, which makes me look like a political beast. Well, I am in my own little circle, but it’s not like I’m ever running for office or anything. That’s actually forbidden by my religion.

No, really. It is.

I’m not ALL about politics though, of course. I probably should have shared my daughters’ visit over the summer though, for instance. Hmmm… I’ll have to catch you up another time.

Anyway! Tonight, I’m going personal. This is about what really is a 1st world problem… which doesn’t make it frivolous. It’s just a matter of circumstance.

A little over a month ago, my mother came down all the way from Canada to Georgia for a long-overdue visit. In the process, being the kind of woman she is, she wanted to give me some things I really do need. My futon is falling apart (it’s more than 10 years old). I need bookshelves. Etc. etc. However, due to a combination of time constraints and other limitations, she was unable to do this before she left, and she determined to do it another way.

Walmart is an international company, as we all know, with 8500  stores in 15 countries, including Canada. According to Wikipedia,

The company is the world’s second largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2013, the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the world.

Given all that power, you’d think their websites would be better integrated for the 21st century.

You’d be wrong.

This is the email I just sent them regarding the fiasco of trying to purchase on the U.S. website (http://www.walmart.com/) using a credit card with a Canadian billing address. I think the following speaks for itself.

My mother, a Canadian resident, is attempting to purchase items for me on the Walmart.com website for shipping to me in the U.S. Her credit card, unsurprisingly, has a Canadian billing address. However, there is NO way for her to enter a foreign address, even though she can purchase items (in theory) in the U.S., for shipping to the U.S.

Why is such a large, international company, still doing things the 1990s way? As you know, credit cards might be issued to anyone in the world, with a correspondingly international address, yet we are still limited to purchasing nationally? That doesn’t make sense to me.

Please don’t tell me about PayPal. She is already skittish about online purchases, I would NEVER recommend she get a PayPal account (whose customer service problems are well-known by now). Besides, it took us 70 minutes on the phone to each other for me to walk her through purchasing 6 items… which she couldn’t even pay for. Can you imagine having to do that for her to understand how PayPal works? I shudder at the thought.

Any chance we will some day have true international purchasing power, or is that but a pipe dream?

Thanks for reading.

Michelle Petit
P.S. If you have a solution, feel free to contact her. Her name is Rollande Petit, rollande.petit@videotron.ca, 819-564-0212, and she does speak fluent English. She has an account on Walmart.com now, but it’s useless to her.

Am I right, or am I right?

In the meantime, my mom will send me a check, which I will have to cash at a cash checking place because I no longer have a bank account (THAT’S another story about awful U.S. business practices!), then put it on my own card, and place the order myself.

Eventually I’ll get a new futon.