(Update: Walmart’s new automated low price guarantee appears to be nationwide now. While still in “beta”, their FAQ has been scrubbed of any geographical limitations. Their inclusions list was changed to add the phrase “most fruits and vegetables.” You must submit receipts within 7 days. Via nicemann of FW. More details below.)
Many stores offer a “low price guarantee” but in reality nobody actually uses them. You have to find the competing price yourself, wait in the returns line, all for the opportunity to argue with the cashier about the validity of your claim. Who wants to do that?
Walmart is has a new feature called Savings Catcher that automates their low price guarantee. Thanks to reader Doug for the tip. Here’s how it works:
- Enter the TC Number from your Walmart receipt at walmart.com/savingscatcher or scan the barcode using the Walmart smartphone app.
- Savings Catcher compares the prices of the items you bought at Walmart to the advertised prices at the time of your purchase from the print and online versions of weekly print ads of top retailers in your area.
- If Savings Catcher finds an advertised price that is lower than what you paid for the same exact item at Walmart, you can get a Walmart Rewards eGift Card for the difference.
This program appears to be available nationwide now. Just for reference purposes, here were the initial test markets and the local competitors they checked against:
- Atlanta, GA– Aldi, Food Depot, CVS, Food Lion, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Ingles, Kroger, Publix, Rite-Aid, Kmart, Target, Walgreens, IGA, Wayfield Foods and Piggly Wiggly.
- Charlotte, NC– Aldi, Bi-Lo, CVS, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Ingles, Kmart, Lowes (Food), Target, Rite-Aid, Publix, and Walgreens.
- Dallas, TX– Albertsons, Aldi, Brookshires, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, HEB, Kroger, Target and Tom Thumb.
- Huntsville, AL Market– Aldi, Belle/Food World, CVS, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Save-A-Lot, Foodland, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, Publix, Rite Aid, Target, Walgreens.
- Lexington, KY– Aldi, CVS, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Save-A-Lot, Kroger, Meijer, Rite Aid, Target and Walgreens.
- Minneapolis, MN– Aldi, Cub Foods, CVS, Family Dollar, Hy Vee, IGA, Rainbow Foods, Shopko, Target and Walgreens.
- San Diego– Albertsons, CVS, Dollar Tree, Ralph’s, Rite Aid, Vons, Smart & Final, Target, Fresh & Easy, Walgreens, Stater Bros and Save-A-Lot.
Savings Catcher applies to your in-store Walmart purchases only. Online prices from competitors don’t count. If you use a manufacturer’s coupon, it will consider the pre-coupon price. You can submit up to 7 receipts per week and 15 receipts per month. Savings are issued on a Walmart gift card that can be used in-store or online. There are item restrictions.
Included:
- Most groceries such as cereal, rice and most fruits and vegetables except for: store brand items, deli, bakery and weighed items like meat.
- Consumable items such as paper towels, bleach and trash bags.
- Health and beauty items such as shampoo and makeup.
- Select general merchandise items.
NOT included:
- Store brands, deli, bakery and weighed items like meat.
- General merchandise items, (including, but not limited to, electronics, media and gaming, toys, sporting goods, housewares, small appliances, home décor, bedding, books and magazines, apparel and shoes, jewelry, furniture, office supplies and seasonal products).
- Non-branded items.
- Tobacco, firearms, gasoline, tires, prescription drugs, optical and photo products and services, or products that require a service agreement such as wireless, automotive or financial products.
How much should you expect back? One frequent shopper reports 2-3% back, via DailyFinance:
Anne Jurchak was part of Walmart’s focus group. She said she’s been getting back $5 to $7 on her weekly trips to Walmart in which she typically spends $200 to $250. Jurchak has used those savings to buy holiday stocking stuffers and a case for her e-reader.
Keep in mind that like many other savings programs like CVS ExtraCare and Safeway Club cards, this will collect data on you and basically track your spending to your SavingsCatcher account. I personally don’t worry about that kind of stuff too much, but FYI.
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Price matching is a way for big companies to engage in price fixing tactics which leaves consumers stuck paying monopolistic prices.
What sense is there for any store to lower their prices if they know their competition will match it.
If you see a store advertising a lower price, support that store!
umm yeah…this sucks actually. I have been fighting with them for over 2 weeks on something. Six emails later and it’s still not resolved. Aldi had Strawberries and Pineapples on sale and they didn’t match the price. I couldn’t report the error from my phone so had to go to a PC. First they told me that it was because they don’t match farm fresh produce and to refer to their FAQ. So I did that and that policy was nowhere to be found. The only thing even close says it does not match WEIGHED items. Well I can see that with bananas but pineapple and strawberries are sold by the item, not weight. So they emailed me back and said they were working on “correcting” the confusion on their website and then told me that I submitted my receipt 10 days after the purchase which is not true. I bought it on 5/7, reported it on a few days later and their first email back to me was on 5/12 which is only FIVE days, not 10. I am sooo frustrated because it’s almost $5. I should have just gone to Aldi and saved myself the headache. Thank god they are expanding in my area and we will have one right across the street. I am over Wal-mart’s abysmal Customer Service.
I just tried to upload a receipt from a store I have been using Savings catcher with from the start and it said my purchase was made prior the my location participating in the savings catcher but it has the tc code and the scan bar on it and I have money back already from that store on previous occasion. However, back to your issue…you can still ask them to price match at the register. At my store, I ask them to price to a certain price and if they know a better one, they tell me and give it too me. Sometimes Walmart isn’t all that bad.
It worked fine for me. I’m not much of a coupon user so it’s a no hassle option for me and my schedule. Also, even though I like stores like Trader Joe’s etc. Wal-Mart carries the name brands that are a staple in most homes. As for the above reader Kevin – I think this actually creates a perfect competition in economic terms. If Wal-Mart is successful at the trial run, prices hypothetically could be driven lower to near costs where suppliers will eventually have to let retailers know that they can’t cut prices anymore. Costco is a great example of this strategy. Although Costco makes most of it’s margin on membership costs. And bulk. Thank you,
Nice! I’ve been looking forward to this rolling out nationwide, I figured it would probably be another year or two. The inner workings of such a program have got to be very difficult. Love it! I’m surprised they don’t have a major ad campaign for this yet, maybe they will roll one out around Christmas.
I’m not much of a couponer either. I’ll use coupons when I go to higher priced places or restaurants, but that is about it. I don’t really care about bringing competitors coupons to Walmart in return of getting a lower price. Maybe If I cared more about pinching every penny, but I believe the time you spend on finding these coupons is time you could be doing something else.
I tried this today in the morning. I had only 1 receipt that met the criteria of the program (it only applies to purchases made in the past 7 days). I got a response at the end of the day: they gave me a credit of $1.28. Thanks.
Nice! Good to see it actually working.
The $1.28 I saved was on some frozen pizza I bought. It was that much less expensive at CVS, a local drug store.
Wow, never heard of this! Thanks for the info and can’t wait to try it.
Hey I live in Hawaii and been tring to research to see if savings catcher is available on Hawaii. I have entered receipts they all say not eligible. Please help, thanks.
Lisa,
Savings Catcher appears to be working everywhere in the US, including Hawaii. Enter your receipt after a purchase within 7 days and it should work. Make sure you enter the date of the receipt, not the date you are entering the receipt.
Well I love this. After scanning my second receipt, I got 74 cents back. Now yes, its only 74 cents as of now, but today when looking at my app on my phone, the 74 cents is gone. It now says i have nothing. It says I have redeemed $0.00 and have $0.00 available. Why is my refund gone???? I wanted to save it up, but that wont work if it keeps disappearing! ugh! Frustrating!
This just happened to me I had over 21 dollars accumulated and just went to enter a reciept and it said I had none submitted and all my money was gone. I’m not happy
The same thing happened to me, twice!! I had accumulated about 8.00 anthem I disappeared . Then it wouldn’t let me log into my account . I had to make another account then after building up 12.00 it happens again!!!!
I just had this problem too..
I had $21 saved and when I checked it again, it said I had to sign in!
I am pretty sure I didn’t have an account. So when I made an account, everything disappeared!
I am NOT HAPPY.
I lost between 20-27.00 my self. I tried to contact them and it keeps saying error. I was saving that money towards CHRISTMAS gifts. I don’t want to enter anymore if someone is going to hack in and steal it.
I use savings catcher every time I go to WalMart and spend more than like $50. So far I’ve only received about $3 back and I cashed it out the first time because I didn’t know what I was doing, but I haven’t found out how to actually get that money. It says it’s on my rewards card but they never gave me any rewards card info and it doesn’t show on my account. Their FAQ isn’t helping either.
I too had accumulated some money on my savings catcher, $9.48; however, I checked my balance today and it is gone. It also says that I have redeemed $0.00, and my balance is $0.00. That is a little bit more than annoying! All of my receipts are still listed. The problem is, along with taking my money, I don’t have the time to deal with them, which is probably what they are “banking” on.
This happened to me too – did anyone figure out why Walmart is stealing our savings balances??
This is happening to me too! Once I redeem the money, it is gone out of my account within a day or so!
ditto $27.48 vanished today!
My receipts and savings disappeared too 🙁 only 86¢ but still. It quickly said “sorry something went wrong” or something like that then it went to my receipt page and it said I had zero receipts and zero savings. Might not be worth it on this one for me
My receipts and savings disappeared too 🙁 only 86¢ but still. It quickly said “sorry something went wrong” or something like that then it went to my receipt page and it said I had zero receipts and zero savings. Might not be worth it on this one for me
I have found that the Walmart saving catcher app is not working but logging into savings catcher through Walmart website worked and my savings and receipts were there.
I never used the app – my balance disappeared online
My balance disappeared too – what a rip off this si turning out to be. I am going back to usig my local grocer, at least I feel appreciated there
Okay so it looks like I’m not the only one that got duped by Savings Catcher. I was excited about this after I got .54 back on my first receipt and was going to let it accumulate but when I logged in to enter more receipts a few days later, my balance is gone without me using it. I entered the other receipts just to see what happens within the next few days. If the same thing happens again I’m going to leave it alone and go back to coupons.
walmart savings catcher is a joke – I had $68.63 which they say someone hacked into my account and took – but Walmart will not refund me
Same here, after it happend twice I called customer service an they acted like they didn’t know what happened but after I got off the phone with them a few hours later they put the money back !
$18.39 just disappeared from my “savings catcher” account too.
Should be renamed “time waster rip off”
This is not cool
Find the right product that is expensive,
know the competitor has it cheaper,
rack up the max in credits ($599.99),
get the gift card,
use it,
return the expensive merchandise.
$12. Poof. Gone. My account says I have no receipts. Not happy.
All of my funds disappeared after 4 months of using the savings catcher. This is truly discouraging even though the app is still in its beta stages. The worst part is no one will see a customer satisfaction response from Walmart’s corp. Its frightening that any business can ignore complaints/comments and have no negative impact on their amount of business. They certainly have an upper hand in the market.
UGH!!! For the second time now, all my savings have disappeared! I had $12 the first time and almost $62 this time! So frustrated!!
Anyone know the number to call to investigate this???
I called Walmart customer service an asked for savings catcher. This happens to me twice too, but after I called somehow the money appears back in my account .
I lost almost all my savings catcher rewards back in April, but I didn’t notice it until a few weeks ago. I guess I should have been checking the balance, but was just saving up for the 4th of July holiday groceries. I called them and was told their site was hacked back in April and they were “investigating”. Said it could take up to a month for results. So far no refund. I’ll not be using their savings catcher program again. Maybe that’s what they want so they don’t have to refund our savings?? Anyone else??
This is the 2nd time I have lost my savings catcher money. The first time it was roughly $40 and this time is is $15. I contacted them with no luck. After a month I finally received an email stating that maybe my egift card was in my spam folder. They totally disregarded the hacking of my account. I just realized that every time I redeem my reward money, it is transferred to the same egift card number, so maybe someone is just using it right when it is transferred. I requested that customer service call me, so we’ll see. So Frustrating!!!
I wouldn’t recommend using the Savings Catcher program to anyone. I think it’s a scam or Wal-Mart just totally ignores the fact they’ve been hacked. They sure didn’t notify anyone & after i contacted them I’ve yet to hear from them about getting my money back. TOTALLY IGNORED!!! So don’t waste your time on this program.
the Walmart savings catcher is easily hacked.my account was hacked on August 28th of this year. The security for this savings catcher program is terrible.is difficult to get Walmart to do anything about it too.
I have been using the savings catcher since the beginning. I have used my total balance twice.
My new savings catcher balance was $54.45. I have tried to use it twice, but the checkers didn’t know how to use it. Finally last night they got it to go through the register but it only gave me credit for $4.45 on my receipt. Where is the remaining $50.00???????
samething happened here almost 27.00 gone,I just go back to my bargin shopping to the stores
Had over $30.00 in my SavingsCatcher. Needed to scan in another receipt. Had to log into my account. Did not recognize my attempts. Stated I needed to create a new account. Now NO $30.00. All Walmart will reply is sorry this happened. Come on, you need to find the original accounts and refund people.
Sorry that we steal your money! The money just disappears from your account. What a waste of time. I look at it this way if they steal $10.00 from a million people they get $10,000,000.00
Yeah, and they steal your money, also, The money just disappears from your account. What a waste of time. I look at it this way if they steal $10.00 from a million people they get $10,000,000.00