Fraud, Prince Charles, and bicycles

What do these three things have in common? Wal-Mart, believe it or not.

This flack pointed out how the woes of the retail giant worsened back on 1/6/06.  I didn’t think it could get much worse.  Not so.

The Associated Press reported that Tom Coughlin, who until last year was vice chairman of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., pleaded guilty to fraud. The charges included faking invoices, and filing expense vouchers seeking reimbursement of money he didn’t spend. 

You’d think he’d need the cash, right?  NOT. 

When Mr. Coughlin retired last year, he was making $1.3 million annually as the retail giant’s No. 2 executive.  As part of his retirement package, he earned $3 million in bonuses and other income and he also held $20 million in company stock. 

Why do people like this stoop to these measures?  Mr. Coughlin blames it on “serious personal mistakes in judgment.” You think???

Then, it was reported that Wal-Mart and Dynacraft, one of their largest bike vendors, are being sued by nine families who claim they sold defective bikes to consumers that caused the front wheels to fall off which, sending children face-first into the pavement.

My problem with this is Wal-Mart’s and the vendor’s response.  They deny any defectiveness, and both Wal-Mart and Dynacraft “blame the accidents on parents and kids tampering with the quick-release levers.” 

They stopped selling the bikes in 2001, but parents who own the same bikes will ever know that there’s a potential problem.  From a PR point of view, Wal-Mart and/or Dynacraft should have at least sent out notices to other owners of the bikes to warn them this MIGHT happen. 

And, finally, in an attempt to clean up all these PR mishaps of recent months, Lee Scott, Chief Executive of Wal-Mart, met last week with Prince Charles himself. Apparently, he’s anxious to turn around Wal-Mart’s image and thought the royal could help based on his own experience with negative publicity.  Right.

My humble PR advice to you, Mr. Scott, would be:

1. Make sure you really know the people that are running your empire, so there is no unwanted stealing from the coffers.
2. It won’t hurt you to admit when you’re wrong on a product once in a while and inform others of potential problems to prevent further bad publicity. 
3. How about getting the advice of some cracker jack PR executives, and not some royal born with a silver spoon in his mouth.