Accused my husband of stealing due to skin color
I was going in with my husband to buy some things for our dog. He said as soon as we walked in that the personnel working there looked at him strangely, like they didn’t trust him. They gave major weird vibes. We walked in the back to buy a car seat and he walked towards the front side of the store (where the cashier is), mind you, it’s a big store and this is in the middle of the day. The personnel is wearing headsets to communicate with each other. They then think I couldn’t hear what they were saying since I speak English (but luckily understand Dutch completely) and they say ”there’s a man walking towards the front with a bag that he hasn’t paid for!”
They actually thought my husband would STEAL simply because of his skin color - this is the worst thing we have ever experienced and even though I am white and my husband is not, and have told me these horror stories before, I’ve never seen it with my own eyes. As soon as she understood that I heard, she tried to cover it up. But they didn’t do this with ANY other person walking around in the store - how DISGUSTING!
Avoid to shop here if you’re not white and don’t want to be accused of stealing because you simply have a different skin tone or ethnicity.
We are still in shock and my husband is extremely upset and the worst thing is we were ready to spend a good 500-600€ in the store. So happy we didn’t. And we will definitely report it, this is discrimination and harassment.
Update: the store responded to my Google review and excusing their racist and discriminatory behavior with the following:
” Our store is quite large, and our team uses headsets to communicate with one another throughout the day. It is standard practice for our staff to inform colleagues when customers are moving between different areas of the store with products that have not yet been checked out. This is done to ensure smooth customer service and to avoid situations where customers are unnecessarily asked twice whether they have already paid for an item.
The comment you overheard was part of this normal internal communication process and was not based on anyone’s ethnicity, skin color, or background.”
Which to me is very strange because my husband was the ONLY one they did this to - the store was full. They are just excusing their racist behavior with the fact that they want to ensure smooth customer service. What a shame and disgrace! Don’t shop here - they are terrible towards their customers with a different skin color than white. Disgusting company! We have reported them to the police.