Walmart customers kept accidentally buying $49 Walmart+ memberships at self-checkout, forcing the company to abruptly yank a promotion

• Walmart has pulled a promotion for Walmart+ memberships from its self-checkout screens.
• The company has been pushing discounted memberships during its Walmart Plus Week event.

Walmart has abruptly pulled a promotion for its Walmart+ membership program after some shoppers accidentally purchased memberships at self-checkout.

"We are aware of some customer confusion with this process which is leading us to remove the prompt," Walmart told Insider in response to questions about the matter. "Any customers who inadvertently took advantage of this offer at a self-checkout and have not activated it can get a full refund with proof of purchase."

Earlier reports on social media indicated that some shoppers were surprised to see the $49 discounted membership on their receipts and were seeking refunds.

The membership offer was part of Walmart Plus Week, the retailer's answer to Amazon's Prime Day. Walmart Plus Week is about not just sales but driving new members to sign up for the service, which normally costs $98 a year.

Walmart+ offers members perks, including free shipping with no order minimums and a Paramount+ subscription.

Amazon recently came under FTC scrutiny after it was accused of making it overly easy to join Prime and excessively difficult to cancel. Its Prime Day event, which ran on July 11 and 12, brings in billions of dollars of sales to the e-commerce juggernaut and drives new signups for the membership service.

Walmart stores had originally pushed the membership promotion to customers at self-checkout kiosks — offering an easy way to access the program at the click of a button, with no requirement to fill in any additional information at checkout.

According to an internal Walmart memo obtained by Insider, customers would receive an activation code on their receipt that they could then use to activate their membership online. The memo encouraged stores to garner signups through a competition that would give a prize to the locations with the most new members.

A push to grow Walmart+

Walmart has pushed to grow its Walmart+ membership base for some time now. In August 2022, the company began offering free Walmart+ memberships to store associates that, while voluntary, made some employees feel pressured into signing up for the service.

A Walmart employee in Texas told Insider that an older customer who didn't speak much English came to them earlier this week because they received less change than expected through the self-checkout. After reviewing their receipt, the employee realized that the customer had accidentally signed up for a Walmart+ membership for $49 when prompted by the self-checkout machine without realizing what they were signing up and paying for.

The employee requested anonymity because they were concerned about repercussions from Walmart and because they weren't authorized to speak with the media. Insider has verified their identity.

The employee posted their experience on Reddit. It has received 1,600 upvotes since it was uploaded, with other users recounting similar experiences at their stores.

"It seemed to me that this was designed that way to make it super easy to accidentally or unknowingly add a subscription to your cart," the employee said. "There must be people out there somewhere who are accidentally paying for this Walmart Plus subscription, going home and not even realizing that they're out of $50, and they don't even know that they have a subscription."

Two other Walmart employees, whose identities have been verified by Insider, said that they had concerns over the prompt being available only in English — which could prompt confusion among customers who don't read English fluently.

Walmart is providing refunds for accidental purchases

The promotions on self-checkout registers were originally scheduled to end when stores closed on July 13.

Customers who wish to receive a refund can do so at a Walmart store or online.

Insider visited a Walmart in Wisconsin and bought a $2.28 Snickers bar at self-checkout. Upon pressing the Pay button, a prompt appeared on the screen offering a $49 Walmart+ membership with the options "Not interested" and "Add membership to cart."

Selecting the latter option brought the subtotal to $51.28, plus tax, and activated the credit-card terminal where the transaction was completed. Another prompt appeared, indicating that a code on the receipt would be needed to activate the account online.

Insider then took the receipt directly to the customer service desk, where a full refund for the $49 charge was processed in about two minutes.

Are you a Walmart employee or a shopper with a story to share? Contact Yeji Lee via email.