(DISCLAIMER: YOU MAY NEED TO READ THIS TWICE TO FULLY UNDERSTAND HOW THOROUGH I WAS)
Free.
Nobody want's to pay full price for anything. Consequently, there's a hustle for everything.
If you need it, get it. Cuz if I need it, Imma get it. If you don't believe me, keep reading.
In Fall 2006, I was a 19 year old student w/ an apartment, a car, and no job. Paying rent and getting the car were easy. I stacked bread that whole summer. Paid 5 months rent up front and cash for the car. I was content. Ballin a lil bit. The refrigerator always had food. My passenger seat always had a young lady.
But after Homecoming (Oct '06) my pockets were thinning. My contacts list wasn't. I couldn't maintain my lifestyle @ the time w/ the money I had @ the time. Around that same time, a friend asked me to take her to return something to Walmart. She didn't have a receipt so they asked her for ID, they typed it in, and gave her a gift card. It took maybe 7 mins. She gave me $5 off the card and I used it @ the Walmart gas station.
It went like this: Return, gift card, gas...remember that.
Rather than waste time explaining my thought process, I'll just say what happened the next day.
Woke up @ like 8 or 9...went straight to Walmart. It was right across the street from my apartment. I looked for the most expensive blender I could find on the shelves and took it to customer service to return it, knowing I never paid for it. The blender was like $47.
Cashier: "Where's the pink sticker? Do you have the receipt?"
(Found out from that statement that those door greeter people also gave out stickers for people returning merchandise.)
Me: "No ma'am. I bought it for my mom's birthday but somebody else got her one too. I threw the receipt away."
Cashier: "Okay. I can't give you cash cuz you don't have a receipt but I can give you store credit"
Me (tryna sound sad): "I guess that's okay"
Cashier: "Can I see your ID?"
I handed her my ID, she scanned the blender and w/ tax it came up to like 52-something. She had to call a manager. Found out that if something is over $50 after tax it can't be returned w/o a receipt. But the manager gave an override.
I got a $52 Walmart gift card for free.
I went straight to the gas station after that. My car only needed $25 of it. Went back inside Walmart and spent the rest on dumb shit like Cup o' Noodles and Frosted Flakes.
But I got a $52 Walmart gift card for FREE.
I went in the house, put the dumb shit I bought away, and got dressed for the day. Wholetime I'm thinking "Return. Gift card. Gas." It was the easiest $52 ever. Of course it wasn't cash, but as a 19 year old college student, $52 went a long way @ Walmart.
I had to do it again.
I went back when I got out of my last class. Figured it would be a new shift by then. This time, I'm one trip smarter. I had a Nextel @ the time and I took the battery out. On the back of the battery was a barcode. I went inside the Walmart and told the greeter I wanted to return it, casually pointing to the barcode so that they would believe it was a Walmart item. They put the sticker on the battery. I pretended to walk to Customer Service then made a sharp right through the isles to the section w/ the blenders.
I repeated the "return, gift card, gas" routine. But this time I had a $44 blender that came up to $47 w/ tax. I still returned it. Still got my gift card.
But my tank was full. So I called my roommate and asked what he was tryna eat for dinner. He said "Steak and shrimp would be ji lovely". I bussed out laughin. I was like "Son...that's somethin I would buy if bitches was comin over". Then he said "Soooo call some bitches over. Fuck is wrong w/ you?"
Fuck was wrong w/ me?
Not a damn thing. So I called this girl and asked her to come to Walmart w/ me and told her I was making dinner later. Walmart is the place to be in NC. And she was a college student too, so she would never turn down a free meal. We went to Walmart, I picked up 6 steaks, a big bag of shrimp, some seasonings, and orange juice.
"Ooooo...you should make mimosas!"
The girl was 21 or 22, I believe. And Walmart sold champagne. So I picked that up too and let the girl pay for it w/ the gift card. I went home. By then my roommate had a girl over there and they were all ready to eat. I cooked. We ate good. The girls pretended to be drunk off the 2 mimosas they had so we took them to our separate rooms...
Knockdown.In one day, I got over $90 worth of Walmart gift cards and made a healthy contribution to my gas tank, my stomach, and my body count.
Walmart only let's you return stuff w/ no receipt three times a year. I was already @ two. So I called the same girl and asked her to come to Walmart w/ me about a week later. She returned a blender, used her ID, and got the gift card.
Got that off her immediately.
Repeated this process w/ different females and @ different Walmarts in the Greensboro area for the next 2 years. Probably filled up my tank AT LEAST 15 times for free. Took trips from Greensboro to back home w/ free gas. Ate steak and shrimp, eggs and waffles, Digiorno's pizzas, Coronas...anything me or my roommates wanted...for FREE. One time I made spaghetti, fettucini, and veal just because it sounded tight...I don't even fuck w/ baby cows like that.
Never gave bitches a penny off the gift cards but my female friends got blessed w/ a few dollars or some food for their dorm.
Walmart got hip somewhere w/in that 2 years. Instead of giving pink stickers, they started scanning the stuff and putting sticker labels on it. That means the Nextel battery trick wouldn't work.
I got around that. Don't even feel like explaining how. And by the time they made that policy change, I was already working again so I didn't need to do it as frequently. When I did need to do it, I did it.
I've never told this story to anyone other than people I TRULY fucked w/. I couldn't risk everybody doing it and Walmart getting completely hip.
But yea...that's how I rolled back Walmart's prices.
