What's going on at Walmart?

[jimistephen]

Alright, I live in Lowell Arkansas. It's about 5 miles or less from Bentonville, which is headquarters for Walmart. I even used to work for an outside company installing Crestron equipment and have been in all of the Home Office buildings, except the bunker. Since we are around HO we get stuff in our stores before everyone else as they roll it out as a practice here. (We also get all the new fast food stuff first because of Tyson down in Springdale and them making all of it, trust me, I used to work there also.)

 

That brings me to my actual question. WM is starting a thing here, where if you walk into their stores and your phone connects to their wifi they send you a Facebook message asking if you need help with anything. You don't even have to actually have to connect to the internet through there, just the wifi. How are they finding that I have FB messenger installed? I assume they're doing some sort of scan on my phone to see if I have it it installed and then send me a message to it. They say they're not doing it, but I don't see another way they could be doing it. What do you guys think?

 

 

[Mark77]

The FB app is tied into the GPS or even uses the IP addresses of the hotspots installed inside the Wal-Marts, and Wal-Mart obviously paid Facebook $$$ to have that as a feature. 

 

Smart of Facebook, IMHO.   Since you're so near Wal-Mart's headquarters, you probably get lots of interesting stuff "beta tested" on you in that store if you go there often. 

[jimistephen]

So it's Messenger saying "Hey here I am!" ?

[Simon771]

Just don't use wifi?

[jimistephen]

Well, I can do that, but it's just a lot easier to just leave it on. Even with that and blutooth on all the time for my iPHone 6S+ I get two days of battery life and to try to remember to turn it off every time I go to walmart is kind of a PITA.

[Mark77]

Yeah in a nutshell.  I don't know if it works off of GPS or off of IP addresses, but basically, the FB apps have access to both and will use them accordingly. 

[Octavialicious]

2 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

Just don't use wifi?

I agree

 

On another note, you're being kind of rude and aggressive in convo. I know you're probably disgruntled, but it's not that guys fault and you don't need to take your frustration out on him tbh

[jimistephen]

I know I was, but I don't know how many times I've told them not to do that, plus I'm usually kind of cantankerous.

[Mark77]

I don't see any problem with this.  In fact, I wish my grocery store had it.  I'm always having trouble finding things.  Being able to chat with, even with a bot, and ask them, "where are the raw sesame seeds" and be told "aisle 8" would be awesome. 

 

 

[jimistephen]

3 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

Yeah in a nutshell.  I don't know if it works off of GPS or off of IP addresses, but basically, the FB apps have access to both and will use them accordingly. 

It's got to be off the IP, It only happens when I my phone grabs their wifi. I've drove through their parking lot to get to the gas station before and got close enough to the building to have it happen, but If I go in down by the gas station it doesn't.

[Simon771]

1 minute ago, Octavialicious said:

I agree

 

On another note, you're being kind of rude and aggressive in convo. I know you're probably disgruntled, but it's not that guys fault and you don't need to take your frustration out on him tbh

Well I didn't want to be rude or anything, but if that would happen to me, I would even care. Simply block that "person" from who you receive messeages. If that doesn't work, turn off wifi.

But yeah I do understand this problem with privacy etc.

 

So facebook and messenger will try to update when connected to wifi. And once that happen, they can sniff what is being sent. facebook and messenger will send some request, and based on that, they know that you are using this app. But how do they find your facebook name? Well again via those packets being sent? Can't be 100% sure.

[themctipers]

13 minutes ago, jimistephen said:

Alright, I live in Lowell Arkansas. It's about 5 miles or less from Bentonville, which is headquarters for Walmart. I even used to work for an outside company installing Crestron equipment and have been in all of the Home Office buildings, except the bunker. Since we are around HO we get stuff in our stores before everyone else as they roll it out as a practice here. (We also get all the new fast food stuff first because of Tyson down in Springdale and them making all of it, trust me, I used to work there also.)

 

That brings me to my actual question. WM is starting a thing here, where if you walk into their stores and your phone connects to their wifi they send you a Facebook message asking if you need help with anything. You don't even have to actually have to connect to the internet through there, just the wifi. How are they finding that I have FB messenger installed? I assume they're doing some sort of scan on my phone to see if I have it it installed and then send me a message to it. They say they're not doing it, but I don't see another way they could be doing it. What do you guys think?

 

 

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well use ios!

 /s

[Octavialicious]

I was talking to OP lmao

 

1 minute ago, Simon771 said:

Well I didn't want to be rude or anything, but if that would happen to me, I would even care. Simply block that "person" from who you receive messeages. If that doesn't work, turn off wifi.

But yeah I do understand this problem with privacy etc.

 

 

[jimistephen]

Just now, Mark77 said:

I don't see any problem with this.  In fact, I wish my grocery store had it.  I'm always having trouble finding things.  Being able to chat with, even with a bot, and ask them, "where are the raw sesame seeds" and be told "aisle 8" would be awesome. 

 

 

Them having it is not my issue, in fact I like that I can get someone that fast. My issue is everytime I walk in they send me a message, and the one time I tried to use it to find something the person on the other end had no idea where it was)

[Simon771]

1 minute ago, Octavialicious said:

I was talking to OP lmao

 

 

haha okay then  

[Mug]

1 minute ago, jimistephen said:

Them having it is not my issue, in fact I like that I can get someone that fast. My issue is everytime I walk in they send me a message, and the one time I tried to use it to find something the person on the other end had no idea where it was)

Don't connect to their free wifi then! Bloody hell, you don't have to use free stuff that you're given.

[jimistephen]

I wasn't either when I was on android, since I switch to iOS I haven't jailbroken it. It's got to be with the wifi as I only have it set to "Allow while I'm using" and they still send it to me.

[MaxBunny]

I thought this would be a discussion about how World War 3 is approaching and how Wal-Marts are going to be used as camps to house unruly citizens under Obama's military state 3rd term rule.

 

But nope. It's something as simple as "I allowed Wal-Mart access to my account and now they send me text messages when I walk in". Pffftttt

[jimistephen]

Just now, MaxBunny said:

I thought this would be a discussion about how World War 3 is approaching and how Wal-Marts are going to be used as camps to house unruly citizens under Obama's military state 3rd term rule.

 

But nope. It's something as simple as "I allowed Wal-Mart access to my account and now they send me text messages when I walk in". Pffftttt

I didn't allow them anything, that's the problem.

[Mark77]

T-Mobile sends me a message every week reminding me that I'm in Canada.  Lol.  "No shit"

 

 

[manikyath]

This is why you dont automagicly connect to public wifi, and if you do you go trough a vpn

[MariusJS]

3 hours ago, jimistephen said:

Well, I can do that, but it's just a lot easier to just leave it on. Even with that and blutooth on all the time for my iPHone 6S+ I get two days of battery life and to try to remember to turn it off every time I go to walmart is kind of a PITA.

Just "forget" the open wifi network at wallmart then? lol

[Lurick]

You don't have to scan the phone, Facebook location data along with other analytic software lets them know you are in or near the store. Combine all that and Facebook sends a little message to you from Walmart on their behalf as a welcome and then presto. Hell, you don't even need to have WiFi enabled, just Bluetooth and/or GPS , and some form of data connection is all that's needed