Sephora "Racial profiling" news

Post by **nightmanoeuvres** » Mon Dec 01, 2014 12:28 am

Has anyone read the articles about all of the Chinese accounts that were blocked from the website during the 20% sale? I honesty have no clue what is going on with it. I'm surprised there wasn't a topic on it.
I don't mean to offend anyone with the "racial profiling" because that was the name of the news articles I read. I just didn't know what else to name the thread! Discuss away....

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Post by **GirlfromOz** » Mon Dec 01, 2014 12:53 am

Is it really about racial profiling or just shipping to China?

I live in Australia and we miss out on a lot of really good sales because the companies won't ship to Australia.

Post by **VeronicaSawyer** » Mon Dec 01, 2014 1:26 am

I was following this on /r/makeupaddiction during the VIB sale when it was happening. It had nothing to do with shipping to China. A bunch of people just woke up one day and tried to participate in the sale online only to find that they were blocked from the site or that their account had disappeared. They were blocking and randomly deleting accounts not just with Chinese domain names in their email, but ALSO American email accounts with "Chinese-sounding" names. That's where the racial profiling comes in. They couldn't get any useful responses from Sephora customer service for quote some time. Sephora tried to damage control with some bullshit about they were trying to prevent people from buying a bunch of sets and selling them for profit on eBay. Which is ridiculous of and in itself, even if they were just blocking Chinese domains, but they weren't, they were blocking people of all different nationalities whose names sounded Chinese. Pretty clear racial profiling even if it didn't arise out of racist motivations.

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Post by **Anonimal** » Mon Dec 01, 2014 6:39 pm

That sure was a stupid move on Sephora's part. They should have just limited the quantity of items each person could buy if they were so worried about people reselling.

Post by **Solonos** » Mon Dec 01, 2014 10:30 pm

I don't quite understand since I don't purchase items from Ebay but what does being of Chinese descent have to do with the chance of reselling items on Ebay?

Post by **VeronicaSawyer** » Mon Dec 01, 2014 10:57 pm

Solonos wrote:I don't quite understand since I don't purchase items from Ebay but what does being of Chinese descent have to do with the chance of reselling items on Ebay?

Absolutely nothing. That's the problem

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Post by **vanillablue** » Tue Dec 02, 2014 6:01 am

I honestly couldn't believe it when I saw comments from angry customers on their Facebook page and I was all OMG is this true? And then comments started disappearing. Who is Sephora owned by Racists?

Post by **nightmanoeuvres** » Tue Dec 02, 2014 11:35 am

I also read one article that said a bot create a bunch of accounts trying to purchase a lot of the same thing. They do put quantity limits on how much items you can buy.

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Post by **nightmanoeuvres** » Tue Dec 02, 2014 11:38 am

Also I didn't mean to say "Chinese accounts" I should have said Asian, idk. Sorry. Hope no one gets upset! They blocked accounts with asian email addresses as well as accounts with asian last names, as Veronica said

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Post by **lalaland** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 10:15 am

I work at abercrombie & fitch don't judge me lol. we have a policy that you're only allowed to buy a certain amount for the same reason because people come to buy and resell especially since a majority are asians (I'm asian too) they are usually tourists that come to the us because abercrombie is cheaper in the us than it is outside the country so they come and attempt to buy wholesale loads to resell. I'm assuming this is why sephora does that.

Post by **VeronicaSawyer** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 10:48 am

^The issue wasn't them setting a limit on how many items you could buy, though. That would have been fine and non-discriminatory. The issue is that they blocked accounts (from all different countries) with "Asian-sounding" names, and then just tried to cover it up by saying they were trying to prevent reselling. Even if that was the case, blocking accounts specific to one race of people isn't justifiable.

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Post by **lalaland** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 12:45 pm

VeronicaSawyer wrote:^The issue wasn't them setting a limit on how many items you could buy, though. That would have been fine and non-discriminatory. The issue is that they blocked accounts (from all different countries) with "Asian-sounding" names, and then just tried to cover it up by saying they were trying to prevent reselling. Even if that was the case, blocking accounts specific to one race of people isn't justifiable.

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I'm only making a guess coming from someone who works retail which is why they block "asian sounding names". I'm not surprised since racial problems still exist today. Even my own manager tells me to watch out for asians that seem like they're "tourist-y" and buying ridiculous amounts of clothing like 5 shopping bags full of them. I don't know how sephoras going to make money if they continue to do that since our company is struggling just from that limit policy

Post by **marieeanna** » Thu May 09, 2019 2:59 pm

Wow that is crazy! I didnt know they did this

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