My friend and I went to check out some cologne one afternoon. As we were checking out a couple of pre-sprayed tester strips, a sales associate asked us for our preferences. We mentioned a couple of our go-to colognes and what else we were looking for, and the associate had us smell a couple of other fragrances.
My friend wanted to have the associate spray one cologne on my friend's skin just to see how the notes come off, and the associate did so. However, the sales associate had a very unwelcoming demeanor from the beginning. We lingered for some time but couldn't decide on one to buy, and since we had a prior appointment at a suit store, we told the associate that we would come back.
After some time, we barely took 20 steps out of the store when a security personnel from the store called out to us, asking us to return a tester. We initially thought he was talking about the test strips (we took a few with us that the associate had given us separately). When we offered those to the security, he said that he was looking for a tester bottle that we took with us. We were quite surprised because we didn't take any, and I pulled out my hand sanitizer out of my pocket to show to the security in case we thought that was a tester. The security guy then said something like "nevermind" and left. We stood outside the store looking back at security wondering what just happened.
We went to the suit store and then went back to Bloomingdales and confronted the security personnel. He said that he was given the wrong description. When we said that it was quite disrespectful to accuse someone without making sure they are the correct person, security just said that it's okay. They did not apologize for their behavior, and because we are people of color, we felt we were violated and subject to profiling and racism.
We asked to speak to their manager but the security personnel said that they were not available and we could file a complaint online, which we later did (we also got his name - Tony). We again mentioned that it is not okay to wrongly accuse anyone of theft without any evidence but security pretty much shrugged and again said that it was okay. Because the security personnel said someone had put them to this task, we had a feeling it was the sales associate since we only interacted with them during our brief time in the store.
We are not sure what kind of training anyone at the store gets or how their hiring process is but it's quite pathetic, to put it mildly. We have frequented KOP mall and stores like YSL, Louis Vuitton, Creed, and never have we ever had such poor quality service, or were made to feel this uncomfortable, or had anyone behave this unprofessionally. read more