One shopper’s exhaustion over T.J. Maxx employees pushing customers to sign up for credit cards is proving to be a relatable moment online.
“I just left T.J. Maxx and I need to rant about how hard the workers push the credit card,” Kim Hein (@kimhein6) says in a recent video that’s racked up over 484,400 views. “And they do it in a way of not even letting the person know they’d be applying for a credit card.”
During Hein’s trip to the store, she says she was in line long enough to observe three different employees attempting to sell customers on the T.J. Maxx credit card. But there was one incident in particularly that really upset her, between a worker and an older woman “that just seemed out of it”
After initially asking the customer if she had a “store card,” the employee insisted it would only take two minutes to sign up, harping on the fact that it would save her 5%.
“And the woman was like, ‘No, I try to tell myself not to do that kind of stuff.’ And then the worker was like, ‘But are you interested?’” Hein recalls.
Eventually, the customer realized the “store card” in question was actually a credit card and doubled down on her disinterest.
“Stop saying ‘store card’ and say, ‘Do you want to apply for our credit card? This is going to impact your credit. It’s going to hit your credit. And you are making a big commitment,’” Hein suggests in her clip.
Why do store employees push credit cards?
Following Hein’s suggestion certainly would be the more transparent approach to pushing store credit cards. However, it’s common for large franchises that have branded credit cards to have specific terminology they train employees to use.
Whether that’s an active attempt to conceal that a “store card” is actually a credit card is debatable. But it is hard to deny that referring to something as a “card” without the qualifier of “credit” makes things confusing, especially when store loyalty cards are also common.
And people in Hein’s comments section were quick to point out something many of us already know—these stores tend to lean heavily on employees to push these credit cards, whether they want to or not.
“They have a quota forced on them by management and they either get in trouble or they get their shifts significantly reduced. it’s not the hourly worker’s fault, it’s the corporation’s fault.” wrote one commenter.
“I promise us retail workers don’t want to be asking either, I wouldn’t sign up myself!” another user agreed. “but it’s tough to have customers get mad at you for asking when it’s your job.”
“I used to work at tj maxx. We get rated based off credit card sign ups; You can be the best employee but get zero credit cards you get in trouble.” said a third.
@kimhein6 @TJ Maxx ♬ original sound – Kim Hein
How do you shut down store credit card requests?
Employees are going to have to ask you to sign up for a card, and sometimes it can be difficult to get them to stop pushing. Some commenters suggested claiming to already have a card, while others had some more creative ideas to hopefully cut the conversation short.
“I always say ‘my credit is frozen and I’m not unfreezing it’ which is 100% true,” said one viewer.
“’It’s against my probation’ is my go to,” another joked. “It makes it too awkward for them to continue.”
And one former Target employee had a suggestion for employees who are struggling, too.
“When I failed to ge tmy weekly quota, I just said ‘they keep telling me if I keep pushing them they will not come back,’” they suggested. “That kept me employed for 2 years.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Hein via TikTok comment and T.J. Maxx via email.
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