Retail Stories: "OMG! What is That?!"

I've worked on multiple retail jobs and collected a lot of interesting stories. I still think back to the experiences...

Whenever I think of retail fraud, I think of this particular one, as it happens so ever often. As serious as it is, I find this incident quite amusing and entertaining, though I do sincerely feel bad for the colleague that it had happened to.

Have you heard of the brand SK-II? If you have, you have probably heard of the product "SK-II Facial Treatment Essence (Pitera Essence)". If you know the product, you will know, just how much the product cost. But if you don't, no worries here's a screenshot of the price of a 7.8oz on Sephora.ca.

On a weekday afternoon, I was working the shift with my colleague, the traffic was slow, so we started to give some "tender love and care" to our assigned areas. I was cleaning and reorganizing my area when I all of a sudden heard my colleague, "what the f***!" I turned around, looking in the direction of where the voice came from.

My colleague, in front of the SK-II shelves, was holding a large bottle of 11.0oz SK-II -- the one with the pump -- with the lid open.

My colleague was furious, looking at her puzzled, I asked her what happened. She held her hand to my nose and asked me to smell the product that she had poured onto her palms.

I took a quick whiff, the smell is definitely not the original product, and looking surprised, I asked her "OMG what is that?!" and if it is this what I think it is.

She nodded her head, still furious, yelled "I can't believe it!" She walked to the back of the store and immediately bagged the tester up and tossed it to the hazmat bin as a bio-hazard.

Yes, someone had replaced the product with diluted pee. How can we tell? The two of us are quite sensitive to smell and we know every smell of every product in our area. And, let's also give you a quick education on where the testers come from. As much as we wish is possible, in a perfect world the testers would all be newly opened products, however, this isn't a perfect world. Whenever a product is returned in-store, every day, the products are "checked" and turned into testers. There are 2-checkpoints for these products, whenever the products are brought back for return, the cashier processing the return should be checking the products, however, not all cashiers are aware of how the products are actually supposed to be like. Then, the second checkpoint is whoever is processing the return products as testers, ideally, they are supposed to know how every product is like in the original, however, not all the people knows. Which then, we do get products that aren't actual products showing up on shelves as testers, when they aren't actually the original product.

Now, if you're someone that likes taking samples, the stores that make samples out of testers could actually be heavily contaminated or replaced and they or you won't even know. However, if you are lucky, you get someone like my colleague or me, immediately we would dispose of the product and ensure you get a sample out of a good tester. Honestly, the likelihood is low, as many people simply don't really care and if you're the kind that likes grabbing a lot of samples, most of the time people making you samples just want to get the samples made and let you go. (That reminds me of a bunch of other stories for future posts.)

Whoever thought replacing "SK-II Facial Treatment Essence (Pitera Essence)" with diluted pee is quite clever, as the essence does sometimes turn into a light yellow colour after prolonged exposure to light, which can look like pee sometimes. I understand how pricey the product is and how much you may want to own the product, but, honestly, there's nothing in this world that is worth you being dishonest.

-------

Facts

The term for this type of retail fraud is "Brick-in-box: This type of retail fraud occurs when someone purchases merchandise, then places random, cheap objects in the original packaging, and returns the package with the fake merchandise for a refund."

-------

*Disclaimer: Retail Stories are based on actual events and experience, with some details added and/or edited. If there is any resemblance to your experience and/or people you know, it may or may not be coincidental.

-------

Resources

https://www.legalline.ca/legal-answers/fraud-against-retailers/

https://www.canadiansecuritymag.com/the-7-faces-of-return-fraud/

https://www.retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2020/07/retail-fraud-continues-to-increase-in-canada-amid-pandemic-executive-study/