Walmart Savings Catcher Adventure

[MickinMD ★]

I average 2.79% Savings Catcher credit ($310.59 since 2015) for all my Walmart purchase - almost all from the groceries portion of my purchases which return about 4% cash-back.

The old Walmart Savings Catcher app that let you take your paper receipt home and scan or type it into a smartphone or computer has been replaced by a smartphone-only app you use only during checkout at Walmart and on which you use "Walmart Pay," which you register for and setup ahead of time with a credit card number to pay for charges, set up a 4-digit pin, and some other info.

The new system was probably created to keep people like me from collecting Walmart receipts from friends and relatives who don't bother with the Savings Catcher and scanning their receipts under our accounts.  When the 12 of us went into rural country on a fishing vacation for a week last summer there was a Walmart there and I collected the receipts from everyone in our group: I made $16.  My credit union manager scanned the Walmart parking lot on the way in and out for foolishly discarded receipts: they could be worth as much as $20.

So, I walked into Walmart today and checked my phone for free WiFi at Walmart - as a phone call last weekend to the store assured me there was.  I had to select the wifi source to connect to and "Walmart.wifi" was a choice and it worked, allowing me to use the Savings Catcher app - which requires a live Internet connection - without using my own metered Tracfone Internet GB.  I bought clothes and food and went to the self checkout.

A worker there assured me it's easy to use and that I could checkout all my items and not need the phone until it came time to pay. So I did so.

When it came time to pay, the usual selections of Walmart Gift Card, Credit Card, Debit Card, etc. appeared on the self-checkout machine's screen as well as a square QR Code.

I knew I was supposed to launch the Walmart app, launch the Savings Catcher sub-app, launch the Walmart Pay sub-sub-app, enter my 4-digit pin, then center the QR code on the camera screen that then appeared on the phone.  It read it so fast with my Galaxy S7 phone that I didn't even stop raising it toward the screen before it had it.  It then said something like "processing" and then a "Thank you for your payment" screen appeared listing the total, how much was charged to "MC 1234" - the 2% cash-back Citi Double-Cash Mastercard I had previously setup with the app, and the $7.45 that was paid by "Gift Card" - the credit I had been awarded through Savings Catcher Program since the last time I redeemed my credit.

A phone call I made to Walmart Savings Catcher Help last Friday alerted me to look for the "Submit" button - which is ridiculous since you're using the Savings Catcher program and, of course, you want to submit the current receipt for possible credit (if any of 60 other stores in the area -Target, Dollar Tree, Supermarkets, etc.- had lower prices for anything I bought).

Sure enough, at the bottom of the Payment info page was a button labeled "Submit to Savings Catcher."  I pushed that and up popped, "Thanks! Receipt submitted to Savings Catcher." Without doing so, your receipt is NOT submitted to the Savings Catcher program and you can NOT submit it at a later time!

I may sound like a lot of work, but it only took a minute to do and will probably save me around $2.83: that's a $170/hour job!

I told the worker who had helped me that everything went fine, thank you, and then asked, "Now how do I get out of here if a worker at the exit wants to see my receipt?"  That wasn't a problem, she said.  You no longer get a paper receipt from the checkout machine (or cashier if you checkout in a standard checkout line) with Walmart Pay, but there is an eReceipt on your phone that includes being able to call up the items you bought - sometimes the exit workers count the things in your cart and compare it with the number of charges on your receipt.

I shop there often enough that it's worth it.  A poor person, paying in cash, would have paid $101.37 for what I bought today.

My final cost should be roughly the following:

$101.37, Initial Total

-$7.45, Savings Catcher redemption, credit from previous purchases

-$2.03, 2% credit card cash-back

-$2.83, approx. 2.79% Savings Catcher credit for $101.37 purchase.

$89.06, my Final approx. Total

So if you're poor, you pay more than if you're well-off, even at Walmart!