One woman wanted to wear Prada but thought she could use a popular scheme to avoid paying for it: Purchase the goods, then wear and return them.
What she didnât expect was that she would get caught by an employee turned private investigator.
In a viral video that has amassed nearly 794,000 views in one day, TikToker Ben Blue (@benblue01) explained how he caught a customer trying to return items she already wore to a luxury retailer.
@benblue01 #stitch with @Jordyn Aaliyah ⏠original sound â Ben Blue
âThe first thing you need to understand is we work on commission,â Blue said in the video.
He explained that his job pays a base rate, but workers can also earn commission on purchases when they assist customers. However, if a customer returns an item, the commission they earned is deducted from whoever puts the return through, even if that employee didnât do the initial transaction.
The first time the customer in question returned expensive items Blue sold her, he wasnât working, so one of his co-workers had to take the hit.
âHey, do you remember that person you sold Prada to?â his colleague asked shortly after the sale. âWell, she just came back and returned what you sold her.â
A week later, the customer showed up to return more items she purchased from another of Blueâs colleagues. Upset that a co-workerâs commission would be deducted yet again, the TikToker decided to do some digging to ensure the return was legit.
âSo at this point, we ended up looking up her sales history, and it was from a different store, but it was basically like bought then returned, bought then returned,â Blue said.
Apparently, the customer was a serial abuser of the storeâs return policy; she would always make purchases right before the weekend and then return them right after. When Blue looked up her name on Instagramâwhich he warns other retail workers not to doâhe said he found pictures of the woman sporting the items at events.
âShe would buy expensive stuff to wear to these events, and when the events were done, sheâd just return it,â he alleged.
Because the store had a pretty lenient return policy, the managerâs solution was to flag the womanâs name so that other employees wouldnât sell anything to her.
That didnât stop the woman from trying, though.
Years later, Ben changed stores and forgot about the drama but re-encountered the woman.
âThis lady comes into the new store, and Iâm putting a sale through for her, and then boom, this note pops up,â he said.
He decided to disregard the note and still put the sale through, just to see what would happen. Lo and behold, the customer returned the items a few days later.
When he checked her profile with his new store manager, they discovered she had still been bouncing between stores with her purchase-and-return scheme.
In the comments section, people were more concerned with the storeâs pay and commission rules than the customerâs behavior.
âThat salary system is seriously messed up!â one viewer said.
âIâd support her 100% if it didnât hurt the employees :/,â a second wrote.
âThatâs WILD that they can deduct commission from somebody who didnât even make the initial sale,â a third remarked.
âYah itâs pretty crazy!!!â Ben responded.
âI mean I donât see the problem if the return policy allows it,â another user argued. âThis sounds like the company needs to change the way they do commissions.â
In similar news, another TikToker went viral a few weeks ago after complaining about Saks customers who return items after wearing them and posting photos on Instagram. The clip amassed over 1 million views.
The Daily Dot contacted Ben Blue via email for comment.
