Walmart stops screwing soldiers

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Friday, December 18, 2009 - 6:32 PM Share

That's big of them -- dropping the extra fee to mail to APO addresses.

A discrepancy between shipping rates charged to stateside customers and to military customers overseas was highlighted in a recent Stars and Stripes article. The shipping costs for a $120 order to Walmart were nearly five times the cost of the same order being sent to a stateside address."

As if Sam Walton's heirs weren't wealthy enough.

MJ Kim/Getty Images

EXPLORE:NORTH AMERICA, MILITARY

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BILL KELLER

6:54 PM ET

December 18, 2009

People worth defending....

good thing the constitution is what is being defended.

JPWREL

7:15 PM ET

December 18, 2009

We send a lot of stuff to our

We send a lot of stuff to our kids SEAL platoon via the US Post Office and their flat rate boxes with an APO address. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of commercial enterprises would try to screw over people when it comes to shipping to troops overseas. Like a lot of wing nuts in this country they are ‘super patriots’ until it hits their wallet.

CASH

12:05 AM ET

December 21, 2009

Wow. Wal-mart's real

Wow. Wal-mart's real scum.

When I had an APO address, I thought the shipping charges I paid were calculated on the package going to New York, at which the Army/federal gov't absorbed the rest.

The only time a shipper ever took into account the APO NY address was Army limits on package size and contents. Harry and David grapefruit couldn't be shipped to an APO address.

If Wal-mart is charging customers for shipping/postage that isn't remitted to the Post Office (since APO and FPO postage rates are still calculated to NY and SF) aren't they at risk for crossing the line into fraud?

I suppose their lawyers have looked into the matter and have advised that if they call the charge handling, they're cool.

But ordinarily, if a company charges for shipping, then it's not supposed to pad the charge beyond the cost of actual shipping/postage. Which is why htey have that handling charge.