Yesterday Wal-Mart was to have begun selling Dell PCs off the shelf, a somewhat odd commercial pairing, at least from Dell’s perspective, which has built its business on direct sales.
That move by Wal-Mart was on top of its foray into the telecommunications service provider arena through the offering of prepaid Skype calling cards.
Now we learn that Wal-Mart wants to move more boldly out of its comfort zone — cut-rate retailing on the backs of an abused workforce — to be a banker of last resort for those who for one reason or another have no traditional bank account.
Meghann Marco at The Consumerist lays out the scheme in all of its sliminess:
Why is Walmart doing this? They’re going after the “unbanked” market, the same group of people who get screwed with payday loans, income tax advance refund loans, prepaid debit card fees, auto-title loans and every other awful “service” that this website warns you about.
Check our Walmart’s awesomely evil deal: Cashing your check costs $3.00, but if you put the money on a Walmart MoneyCard, they’ll waive the $4.64 “loading” fee. Neat! After that it’s only $4.94 a month to keep your money on the card.
And that’s not the half of it.
It was just the other day that I mentioned to Mrs. Buzzblog that my long-held antipathy toward Wal-Mart had finally and firmly evolved into an inviolable pledge to never again set foot in one.
File this story under yet another reason.
