If you’re tired of being asked by retail employees asking you if you want to sign up for a store credit card, it would appear that workers are just as weary of these requests as well.
At least, that’s judging by the comments left in response to a viral TikTok posted by Maddy Gam (@maddygam) who called out TJ Maxx managers for insisting their employees attempt to foist credit card signups on unsuspecting shoppers.
The TikToker called out the practice in a video that’s accrued over 713,000 views on the popular social media platform.
@maddygam Enjoy your extra PTO days from your employees selling cards, manager suzanne 😍😍😍😍
♬ original sound – C I L L A A U D I O Z 🍭🍬.
Gam dances in the clip, smiling, presumably as a representation of how little managers care about pushing their employees to reach corporate goals: “T.j. Maxx managers after forcing high schoolers to sell credit cards to struggling single mothers or threatening that they’d get fired”
The manager’s intentions behind selling these credit cards to customers, according to a caption posted by Gam, seems to stem from a place of selfish gain, too, as she suggests that hitting these goals will ultimately earn them more PTO: “Enjoy your extra PTO days from your employees selling cards, manager suzanne”
Other commenters appeared to sympathize with this same workplace struggle. One TikToker wrote pretty much every single retail store is pushing its employees to do the same thing: “this is every retail company now. I love the girls who say ‘it’s asking if you want sign up for our credit card you can just exit that if you want’”
There was another viewer who said that at their current position with Ulta they were asked to do the same. In fact, they’d have to ask customers three separate times and if they weren’t moving enough cards, they’d have to go through a re-enactment with their bosses and pitch them a store card sale: “At ulta we had to ask three times and if you didn’t sell enough the managers would call you back and make you roleplay selling them a credit card”
One TikToker said that at their JC Penney job, their manager tried to “brand” them by making them wear a badge indicating they didn’t hit their credit card sales targets: “A manager at JCPenney tried to make me wear a ‘badge of shame’ for not selling enough credit cards… I immediately went to HR”
A Kohl’s employee said that they were put in a similar situation as management staged an “intervention” about their inability to effectively push credit cards on shoppers: “they seriously gave me an intervention meeting when I worked at kohl’s and refused to be pushy about credit cards”
The Kohl’s slander continued: one employee said a manager tried to get them to sign up for one of the store cards: “when i was on shift and one of the managers tried to get ME to sign up for one khols is insane”
It appears however, according to one user’s comment, that some customers are preemptively informing them they aren’t interested in signing up for credit cards: “I had a customer who came up to the register and the first thing she said to me was ‘no I do not want a credit card so don’t ask’ and I was like okayy”
Another user on the platform expressed their disdain in the matter in which managers attempt to police the ways employees go about requesting customers apply for a credit card: “the way the managers would hover right behind u to make sure u ask for a card”
There’s a glaring reason why major retailers push for store-branded credit cards: increased profits. The Conversation states that Macy’s received a whopping $771 million in revenue from its credit cards alone.
FinanceBuzz also reports that “more than half” of folks who signed up for store credit cards said they’ve increased their spending habits at a particular retailer as a result of having a store card.
The Daily Dot has reached out to TJ Maxx and Gam via email for further information.
