Social media in mainland China has been amused by a wealthy woman’s act of revenge against the staff of a luxury brand store.
The woman, who described the incident as “the most upsetting incident of the year,” felt rejected by staff at a Louis Vuitton (LV) store and returned to the store two months later with 600,000 yuan (US$84,000) in cash to seek revenge.
The woman, who uses the pseudonym xiaomayouren on the social media platform Xiaohongshu, shared her “exciting” experience at the StarLight Place shopping mall in southwest China’s Chongqing in June, news channel Sohu reported.
In the initial exchange, the woman, who was carrying a Hermes handbag, said she had gone to the LV outlet to buy clothes and that the staff had behaved distantly towards her.
They ignored her request for drinking water and simply pointed to old seasonal clothes while she hoped to see the new arrivals.
They even rolled their eyes and seemed impatient when she asked them to show her some dresses in the right size.
The customer said she called the luxury brand’s “head office” after leaving the store, but was ignored.
After holding her grudge for two months, the woman brought a large bag containing 600,000 yuan to the same store. She was accompanied by her personal assistant and a friend.
They tried on some clothes and told the saleswoman that they were going to buy them. The woman then handed the saleswoman a large bag of banknotes to pay.
After the saleswoman spent two hours counting the money, the woman told them, “We don’t want to buy anything now. We’re leaving.”
“After they finished counting, I just took my money and left. How can I buy their products to improve their work performance?” she wrote on Xiaohongshu.
The woman’s story went viral on the Internet and received much praise from netizens.
“This ending is so adorable. I always wondered why these saleswomen are so arrogant,” said one online observer.
And another said: “They sell luxury goods, but that doesn’t mean they are luxury goods themselves.”
Louis Vuitton’s China office had not responded to questions from The Post at the time of writing.
Disputes over the dismissive attitude of sales staff repeatedly dominate social media in China.
In 2021, a customer in eastern China’s Zhejiang province told the media that she was shooed away twice within 15 minutes by a saleswoman at a luxury cosmetics store when she sat down to rest.
The woman stated that she felt discriminated against and insulted because she was dressed casually and was not wearing makeup.
The store manager apologized to the woman after the incident became widely known.
