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Walmart Whistleblower Claims Cheating In Race With Amazon (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: In its race to catch Amazon.com in online retailing, Walmart issued misleading e-commerce results and fired an executive who complained the company was breaking the law, according to a whistle-blower lawsuit. Tri Huynh, a former director of business development at Walmart, claims he was terminated "under false pretenses" after repeatedly raising concerns about the company's "overly aggressive push to show meteoric growth in its e-commerce business by any means possible -- even, illegitimate ones." Under Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon, Walmart has invested billions to catch up with Amazon in e-commerce over the past few years, and last year enjoyed quarterly online sales growth rates surpassing 50 percent, well above peers that include Target and Best Buy Huynh claims Walmart mislabeled products so that some third-party vendors received lower commissions, failed to process customer returns, and allowed offensive items onto the site. Huynh's dismissal in January 2017 -- just a day after a retail-industry publication singled him out as one of the sector's rising stars -- was in retaliation for warning senior executives about the misdeeds, he said in the lawsuit, filed Thursday by employment litigation attorney David M. deRubertis in San Francisco federal court.
Utilize cheap and ubiquitous illegal Mexican labor, pay with store credit and keep it under the table. Eliminate healthcare and retirement costs and aggressively track and ratchet up pressure on employees to work faster.
Or, you could do it Walmart's way.
I used to think Amazon was bad because your search results shit back whatever most expensive garbage they hoped theg could sell you based on those keywords... till I had the idea to just add site:amazon.com to a google search. ... fine then sort from highest price to lowest... still cuts off any laptop under 2000. And then there is the "only in store" items and otherwise unavailable for order items that also cannot be filtered... I could go on, but I went on to a navigable site like newegg. Basically, the only way I end up ordering from walmart.com is if it comes up on a google search for a specific product...
Walmart.com is in its own league of bad. If slow loads and multiple layout redraws weren't bad enough, it lacks useful filters, has limited categories, includes marginally related accessories so instead of getting 100 useful results you hit the item limit (yes there is an item display limit) from accessories and get 0 useful results
horrible, slow, annoying
In a race to the bottom? Where the winner gets to take all? Say it isn't so!
Huynh went to work for them knowing what they were like. Oh puhleeze, don't try to tell us he didn't know.
And then he complains because he got caught in it?
Every Walmart and Amazon employee has to know they'll be on the chopping block sooner or later. It's only a matter of time.
I feel sorry for each and every one of them. But honestly, start retraining now for something else. Something better. The job you save will be your own.
I wonder what's the future for this executive. I mean, many future employer may see him as someone that isn't loyal.
Sure he may sue them unjustified lay-off, but f whistleblower lead to a massive lawsuit, I think they should receive a share of the dollar.
How much of a loser do you have to be to cheat and still lose?
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Anybody can create a million dollar increase in sales if given a two million dollar marketing budget!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Hilarity ensues.
I order something from Walmart.com. Got the delivery date and all but a day later I was told the item was not in stock and order was canceled. Ironically they have the same item no at 149 and its in stock! For Christmas they had a promo if buy something over 75 bucks on the credit card they will give you a statement credit for 35$. Year right, never happened. Everything Walmart does is a joke!
Walmart's relatively new to the e-commerce game and are probably stumbling some, but even if these accusations are true, they don't seem like issues that can't be fixed. The 3rd party vendors and customers seeking returns aren't just going to go away, and Wal-mart's profits will reflect that eventually. Also only one side of this story is being told. I know it's fun to shit on Walmart, but I'm going to hold judgment for now.
As an aside, now is a good time for someone to challenge Amazon. The new Amazon Logistics shipping system takes much longer than their shipping used to and is very unreliable. Their customer service admitted they were having some issues to my wife on the phone when she reported a second missed delivery to our house. The private delivery contractors Amazon is using don't seem to know the routes and delivery locations like FedEx and UPS and they are making mistakes. And I know I'm going to sound like a complete schill, but... I bought something on Walmart.com about a month ago for the first time I can ever remember, because it was slightly cheaper than Amazon, with free shipping, so I said "what the hell" ...it was delivered in less than a week, like Amazon used to do for me.
Huynh claims Walmart mislabeled products so that some third-party vendors received lower commissions, failed to process customer returns, and allowed offensive items onto the site.
If he wants to claim whistleblower treatment..... he'd best have a better story than that.
I'm sure Amazon has some erroneously labelled products too.
Causing some vendors to receive lower commissions will be interesting to those vendors, but it's not likely to be criminal.
Perhaps Huynh is just not realizing retailers generally must become as ruthless as the company they're trying to compete with....
If, as he claims, he raised concerns about unethical and/or illegal activities to upper management and was fired simply for doing so, that would be retaliation. The severity of the alleged activities and whether or not other companies do them too isn't relevant under either law he is suing under.
Exactly. If laws were being broken, he has a case and would win eventually if the legal system didn't massively favour the party with the fattest wallet. If no laws were broken, at best, Mr. Huynh will only contribute to his law firms' profitability.
As someone with some first-hand experience with whistle-blowing, where laws were clearly being broken, it's best to keep your mouth tightly shut at work, even if you are going to take action, which you should meditate on for a good long while, because the system is stacked. If you simply must do something, do it anonymously. And don't expect any comeuppance for those at fault. Instead, expect layer upon layer of ass-covering by everyone responsible for dealing with the problem.
Just look at some famous examples of what happens to whistle-blowers and you will quickly understand why Deep Throat kept his secret for more than three decades. The would-be whistle-blower would be well served by emulating Mark Felt's example.
"But Walmart’s online sales growth hit a speed bump in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, which included the critical holiday shopping season. ...less than half the rate of growth in each of the previous three quarters."
--NY Times
“Wal-Mart sacrificed and betrayed its founder’s key principles of integrity and honesty, pushing those core values aside in its rush to win the e-commerce war at all costs,” Huynh said in the 70-page complaint.
I wonder what's the future for this executive. I mean, many future employer may see him as someone that isn't loyal.
On the other hand, future employers may see him as honest, and that will count for something. Some employers actually do want to know when something unethical or illegal is going on in their company.
He also has a positive review from an industry publication. (See TFS.)
Sure he may sue them unjustified lay-off, but f whistleblower lead to a massive lawsuit, I think they should receive a share of the dollar.
Interesting point. IANAL, but I'm not sure I agree. Strictly speaking, he wasn't harmed by what the company did that he reported. Rather, he was harmed by the company firing him for reporting it. So maybe his complaint should be in a separate lawsuit?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Isn't that what happens when you don't change the sheets often enough? https://allswellhome.com/pages...?
Ok, maybe this is trolling, but come-on! How fun would that link be! ... Russian government sponsored hackers inflated the WalMart's online stats to get at Amazon for not selling Russian AK47s ... go for it!
Where vast sums of money are at stake, there will ALWAYS be cheating.
No exceptions.
It's human nature.
Walmart let go a significant number of IT employees on the west coast in January of 2017. It included a lot of engineers, contractors and some middle management. It's just as likely that this person was part of that force reduction and felt jilted or is looking for more of a payout.
I think it would be pretty difficult to hide the kinds of activities described and if these allegations were true, it would have been in the press long ago.
Lastly, eCommerce makes up only 3-4% of Walmart's revenue. If someone was going to "cook the books" there are a lot greener pastures available to do that. I will be very curious to see what evidence is shown if this actually makes it to court.
Given WalMart's questionably legal actions in the past and the "drink the the Kool-Aid" culture that Walmart has I believe that wothout a doubt that he is telling the truth.
he raised concerns about unethical and/or illegal activities to upper management and was fired simply for doing so, that would be retaliation
Which is not illegal. You can be fired for raising concerns with upper management, regardless what those concerns are.
Only thing the laws protect is raising concerns with official law enforcement..... so if you raise concerns with management
but not law enforcement, there's no legal protection against retaliation for that, and they can still fire you on the spot.
I cannot count the number of things I have bought online at Newegg and Amazon and Aliexpress and a few other places. I have never bought anything online from Walmart and just don't feel the need too. The prices are usually better someplace else and Walmart already gets enough of my money when I go shopping as it is. Although lately I have been trying to shop almost anywhere else but Walmart, I just hate doing all my shopping and then seeing 40 registers and 3 of them (at most) open and like 10 people in front of me at each register.. Tell me your not making enough money to pay a couple of more people the small wages they pay to open a few more registers. I love computers (shop at Newegg,com should be a clue) but I hate the self check out lanes unless I have like 3 items or less (then they are awesome, love them, but try using them when you have like 40 items in your cart... they suck.)
Walmart would be doing a lot better in ecommerce if it didn't have slow as hell search results for items.
On the other hand, future employers may see him as honest, and that will count for something. Some employers actually do want to know when something unethical or illegal is going on in their company.
It also helps that he didn't say anything until he was fired. You don't want a guy who's going to run to the regulators and police just because you're breaking some minor securities laws and haven't yet turned around. If you're dealing with life-endangering situations, you fire that one off fast; otherwise you keep pressing until something shifts, either by increasing discomfort in a few influential managers or by them simply firing you. Eventually, that noise leaks out on its own; or you just decide it's been too long and you fire a warning shot before calling the SEC.
Generally, when big businesses issues some corrections, some apologies, and some statements about problems they've discovered within their administration and steps they're taking to ensure these don't occur again, we go pretty easy on them. Good behavior is rewarded. You want people who will drag you kicking and screaming back in line, because bad behavior is punished severely.
WalMart asked for this. They're going to have some serious trouble with the SEC, given that their board apparently understood what was going on, their CEO evidently also understood what was going on, and they removed the dissenting voice instead of heeding the man and straightening out.
The board should have directed the CEO to correct the issue, and then replaced him if he didn't.
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What company doesn't feel pressured to keep improving given that investors keep demanding it. Personally I think WalMart does online retail all wrong and should only focus on products they actually sell in store. Too much third party crap that appears to be getting them in trouble. Its just a bad reason to make your online store look better and overly inflated. WalMart for me is a much different type of retailer then Amazon. If I was WalMart I would focus far more on your more similar competition and less at Amazon.