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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.
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
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
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.
In a race to the bottom? Where the winner gets to take all? Say it isn't so!
Walmart's ruthlessness and unethicality are legendary. It's not a stretch to imagine they'd do something like this.
Huynh went to work for them knowing what they were like. Oh puhleeze, don't try to tell us he didn't know.
Yes, no doubt he was aware of their history. But his supposed a priori awareness is irrelevant.
And then he complains because he got caught in it?
No, he is complaining because he claims he got fired for whistle-blowing. Internal whistle-blowing. Allegedly, he kept his concerns inside the organization, and was rewarded with termination.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
The key point here is that Amazon is no longer (or never was?) the cheapest. Often the bigger problem is finding a *reputable* cheaper seller that sell more than a tiny niche. Wal-Mart is beginning to crush Amazon at that.
I have found that the e-commerce verticals absolutely destroy Amazon on price. Examples of verticals that kill Amazon: Autoparts, Beer brewing supplies, certain types of electronics, pet food/supplies, bulky consumer products (e.x. paper towels), adult toys, etc. But unless you shop that vertical frequently it is hard to find the reputable dealers for each and then you have a new set of counter parties to deal with.
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.
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.
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.