So having retail giant Walmart (WMT) do delivery seems like a natural fit. Being able to shop at Walmart, and take advantage of Walmart prices, without running the risk of running into the “People of Walmart” sounds pretty good. But Walmart recently found itself on the bad end of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) lawsuit over delivery driver practices. This was not something Walmart needed right now, and shares slid nearly 2.5% in Monday afternoon’s trading.
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A Wall Street Journal report noted that Walmart and Branch Messenger—a payment platform—got together to open accounts for Spark delivery drivers. Then, Walmart routed drivers’ pay into Branch accounts, but did not bother to ask the drivers if that would be acceptable. Walmart went one step farther, the report noted, saying that anyone who took issue with being paid via Branch would be terminated.
Worse, while Walmart reportedly touted “same day pay” for the drivers in question, the report noted a downright labyrinthine process to actually access those payments. And just to top it off, trying to transfer the money from Branch to, say, the employee’s preferred bank came with extra fees and delays. The CFPB noted that the workers in question wound up paying over $10 million in extra fees just trying to get the pay they earned.
Poison Groceries, Aisle, Well, All Over The Place
As if that were not bad enough, Walmart found itself the victim of a “social media prankster,” who decided that adding bed bug and flea killer to produce and other things made a good prank. Charles Smith, was charged with—according to a Fox News report—“felony-level poisoning and misdemeanor-level criminal damage” after Smith walked into a Walmart in Mesa, Arizona, grabbed a can of bug killer and proceeded to spray a variety of “…produce and prepared food items, such as rotisserie chickens.”
In an odd twist, Smith then turned himself into police and admitted to the whole thing. Walmart, for its part, confirmed to Fox News that “…all tainted products were removed from shelves.” How exactly Walmart knew that was the case is, as yet, unclear, but it may well put some shoppers off of buying anything that might poison them in the near-term.
Is Walmart Stock a Good Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on WMT stock based on 26 Buys and two Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 74.26% rally in its share price over the past year, the average WMT price target of $97.34 per share implies 7.74% upside potential.
