On Mon, 7 Jul 2014 16:48:27 +0000 (UTC), Larry Blanchard
wrote:

On Sun, 06 Jul 2014 22:11:25 -0700, Lew Hodgett wrote:

Last Nov (2013), changed my health insurance provider and as a result
had to select an approved local pharmacy for drugs.

The closet place was Wal-Mart, not one of my favorite places, but what
the heck.

We started using Walmart for prescriptions back before I was eligible for
Medicare because we could get generics there cheaper than anywhere else.
Now that we're on a fixed income we do some of our shopping there and
still use their pharmacy.

We don't use Walmart Pharmacy (rather Kroger) but we're on vacation
and my wife forgot to pack one of her meds. She had her doctor send
the Rx to the WallyWorld (no Kroger here) here but as it turned out
they didn't have the drug in stock. They called all around the area
and found a drug store that had it. I thought that was rather good
since we never use them.

The woman at our insurance company gave my wife a ration, at first,
but she called back and got someone who was quite helpful. It turned
out that we had once-per-year "loss" coverage, so they just chalked it
up to a "loss" and covered it, resulting in a $25 co-pay rather than
$125 (for 10 pills).

We've only had two problems in 10+ years. Once they were out of a drug
and they called several non-Walmart pharmacies till they found it for me.
The other time their supplier jacked up the price of a generic a
ridiculous amount, but they had that fixed by the next time I needed a
refill.

Walmart is like Harbor Freight. Some good stuff and some junk. But I've
been pretty happy with their pharmacy.

The difference is that WallyWorld carries name brands, which are
exactly the same thing as more expensive stores carry.

I suspect it depends on where you live. We're in the Inland Northwest
and retailers in general seem to generate less complaints than elsewhere.

As an example, I wanted to buy a 12" SCMS from HF when it was on a
special sidewalk sale. I got there right after opening - both of the
ones on hand had been sold. The manager gave me a rain check. I said I
thought they didn't give rainchecks on special sale items. The manager
responded that this store did when ^%$#@ corporate only sent her 2 of a
hot item :-).

I had them give me the sale price on a mower lift when they had none
the week before when the sale was running. I'm pretty careful about
what I buy at HF, but they've always been more than fair. They did
lose my debit card number, though. That turned into a minor PITA
(three weeks to get a new one - but that wasn't HF's fault).