A TikToker was left in tears after thinking she had made $4,000 in commissions, only to discover PacSun had canceled almost all of her affiliate sales.
Anne (@anneccourtney) had gone on TikTok Live several times last month over the course of three hours, promoting PacSun’s products as an affiliate. She later shared screenshots of her expected commission in an emotional video, saying that the nearly $4,000 she was expecting to earn would be “life-changing” money as a single mother with student loans.
But within days, all of that fell apart. Anne says she woke up to hundreds of messages from people saying their orders had been canceled by PacSun. By her estimate, that amounted to 99% of the sales she helped make, wiping out her commission.
Many people in both the comments of her videos and private messages to her said that the reasoning they were given for the cancelations had to do with being unable to ship to the customers’ addresses. However, several who commented noted they’d received PacSun orders at the same addresses in the past. One viewer even said they placed two orders through Anne at the time in question, with only one canceled with the address reasoning, while the other was delivered to their home with no issues.
“I don’t know how TikTok Shop can do this, or how a company can do some type of scam sale like this,” Anne said. “PacSun is such a massive company. And they canceled everybody’s orders from this sale. I sold $22,000 worth of product in three different Lives that I did on this day. And for the last week have been thinking I was going to make around $3600-3700 in commission, which I was excited to put towards some of my student loan debt. It just really sucks.”
@anneccourtney Replying to @Nomads Clothing LLC @pacsun @tiktok creators how is this ok?? #scam #canceledorders #tiktokshopscam #pacsunsalescam ♬ original sound – Anne
She’s not the only one
And it seems she wasn’t the only TikToker to experience this.
“Same thing happened to me had 3k in sales, from the live i did and they cancelled everyone all my commission gone,” @ytkles wrote on one of her videos.
“I’m a pacsun partner and had hundreds of orders cancelled too,” @hey_grooves said. “Including my own orders for sale items.”
Beyond that, other affiliates said they’d had similar issues happen with completely different brands, leading many to suspect the problem was with TikTok Shop.
Others felt there may have been something more malicious going on, suggesting perhaps the company was just trying to redirect people to their website to avoid paying affiliate commissions.
“It’s giving Francesca’s,” @mrshoweee commented, referring to another company that has recently come under fire on TikTok for allegedly owing people money.
But what Anne and her viewers found even more strange amidst all of this was that PacSun didn’t seem to be addressing what happened publicly, despite receiving numerous complaints on social media. And Anne says multiple attempts to contact both PacSun and TikTok through various avenues didn’t lead anywhere.
@anneccourtney Still waiting on that email.. @pacsun @TikTok Shop 🇺🇸 #pacsun #pacsunsale #canceledorders #tiktokshop ♬ Good Luck, Babe! – Chappell Roan
She finally took a viewer’s advice and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. At that point, she received an email from PacSun:
“The TikTok platform experienced a pricing error for a short time on June 14th which caused the prices for all Pacsun goods to temporarily reflect an incorrect selling price of $20.01. Under the terms and conditions of sale applicable to all consumers who purchase Pacsun goods via TikTok, ‘Sellers may initiate a cancellation of a confirmed order for any reason.’ As a result, these orders were cancelled and cannot be reinstated.”
The response seemingly confirmed suspicions that TikTok Shop was at fault, although people still didn’t understand why the company blamed the cancelations on address issues and failed to address anything publicly.
“Say something, right? It’s just so odd to me. If it wasn’t your mistake, say something about it,” Anne said. “Why be so, so dead silent like they have been? Avoiding hundreds and hundreds of comments asking them to say something. It’s just fishy.”
The whole debacle raises questions about the reliability of TikTok Shop that brands should maybe take a little more seriously. Unfortunately, it’s also a stark reminder to influencers not to count on any projected earnings until they’re in hand.
In an email to the Daily Dot, Anne wrote that she had not heard anything else from the Better Business Bureau or PacSun.
“I reached out numerous times to them and at the end of the day, even if the sale was an accident or a glitch on TikTok shop, I think they should have just taken the loss,” she said. “It was most upsetting that they wouldn’t even address it or apologize for the mistake.”
Anna said she knows the company saw her videos on the incident because the PacSun TikTok account accidentally liked a video on her TikTok page.
“I thought at the very least they could try and make it right out of goodwill, but I’ve accepted that they are staying silent on it,” she said.
While Anna said she will try not to talk about the incident anymore, she hoped the glitch “will be something TikTok uses to make improvements to their affiliate program to better protect us and our time against massive losses due to cancellations.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to PacSun via email.
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