Phantom “JAJKET” Item Shows Up on Walmart Receipts, Shoppers Charged $10-Investigation Pending!
Summary of eRumor:
Facebook posts warn shoppers to watch out for a phantom item that appears on receipts as “jajket 000000000001K” and charges shoppers $10 for absolutely nothing.
The Truth:
We haven’t been able to find anything about the so-called phantom item that shows up on Walmart receipts as “jajket 000000000001K” and supposedly bills customers $10 for nothing.
We’ve reached out to Walmart corporate headquarters and will post future updates here.
These warnings surfaced on social media and on discussion forums in July 2017. A post from a Walmart shopper who realized that he or she had been billed $10 for a phantom that showed up on the receipt as “jajket” with a SKU number of 000000000001K was widely shared on Facebook:
“I shopped at Walmart in Clinton today. I was charged $10 for absolutely nothing. The item is JAJKET 000000000001K. I called them when I got home and was told that this is a phantom item. It randomly comes up even though it is not scanned. When I asked how long it has been happening, I was told almost 10 years. They know about this. It randomly gets added to your ticket and unless you are checking or paying attention then you pay for it without getting anything for it. Going tomorrow to get a refund. This is rediculous! They know it happens, but haven’t told anyone. Told me they can’t purge it from their system. When I wondered how many times this has happened to me before they seemed to not care. How many times has it happened to others? I sent an email to corperate office. Hope somebody fixes this! If I took $10 merchandise and said it was a phantom, I bet I would be seeing the inside of a jail cell! Watch your receipts! It supposedly comes up same letters and numbers every time.”
The post also includes a photo of a Walmart receipt with the mysterious Jajket 000000000001K listed as a $10 taxable purchase (an X next a line item on a Walmart receipt indicates that it’s a taxable general merchandise item):
It should be noted that the original post was reposted countless times. It might appear that countless shoppers have reported the phantom jajket item, but all of these posts use the same photo. The issue is not as widespread as some have been led to believe by the volume of posts appearing on Facebook.
Our first stop was Walmart’s official website. Shoppers are able to plug in the SKU numbers of any product item in the store into the search bar and instantly view the item. Of course, there is no item called a “jajket,” or any item with a SKU of 000000000001K in the store’s online product database. That was a dead-end.
Next, we did a Google search for all occurrences of both Jajket and 000000000001K. Outside warnings that emerged in July 2017 about the phantom item showing up on a Walmart receipt, there was no online footprint for either term. That would likely dispel the idea that Walmart has been using the phantom jajket 000000000001K item to con shoppers out of $10 for years. Somebody would have said something about it much earlier.
That leaves us with very little information to prove or disprove this jajket warning. However, one social media user commented that the 000000000001K item code means that it was hand keyed by a cashier because the item didn’t have a price tag, and the cashier likely mistyped “jajket” instead of “jacket” into the item description field because they were in a hurry. That’s one potential explanation.
In the end, however, there isn’t enough available information to make a determination about this one. We’ll update the post when we hear back from Walmart’s corporate office.