About a week ago, I stopped into this Wal-Mart location to special order a rifle. Certain Wal-Marts in the KC area still handle guns, and this is one of them. I went to the gun counter and asked for the special order gun catalog. I was told by the clerk that this store no longer ordered guns although they did sell them. In other words, if I wanted a random gun in the case, fine, but they would not special order one for me. Now, the first thing that makes this ridiculous is that Wal-Mart requires pre-payment on gun orders...so by them letting me special order a gun, they stand to lose nothing since I've already paid for it. That aside, I asked the clerk if this was a store or corporate new policy. She said a store policy, the manager had enacted it recently. I politely asked to speak to the store manager, to gain some insight on why my pre-paid gun order was unsatisfactory business for them. Nobody returned the clerk's page time and time again. Finally, the assistant store manager appeared. I very politely asked about the policy and was told that yes, it was correct, they would not order me a gun. She told me it was not store policy or management policy, but that Wal-Mart corporate had ceased all special orders for guns company wide. I asked if she was sure of this, and I was told, yes, they would love to take my $700 but her hands were tied, corporate had spoken. No special order guns at any Wal-Mart stores.
I thanked her and went to my car, but this still didn't make sense. I remembered there was another Wally World in Blue Springs off Adams Diary Parkway that sells firearms. I figured I'd scoot by there on my way home just to see if indeed special orders were banned corporate wide. I went in the Blue Springs store, was greeted cheerfully and told, sure, they'd order me anything I wanted. The clerk called the warehouse to see if the Marlin I wanted was in stock, and unfortunately it was OOS. I was asked if there was anything else in the catalog I was interested in, they were happy to check stock in the warehouse and order me anything that was in stock.
Now, this amazed me, because the only conclusion to be drawn is that the management of the Independence Bolger location flat out lied to me. The store 10 minutes down the road was ready to order me anything I wanted. When I asked, the Blue Springs store told me there was no such special order restriction and that the Independence store folks were basically crazy.
Do yourself a favor. Avoid the Wal-Mart on Bolger in Independence, and deal with someone who has a clue elsewhere in the Wal-Mart system.
more