A woman issued a PSA about shopping at HomeGoods after she bought two identical pillows but was charged a different price for each.
Jessica O’Neil (@jessicaoneil) shared her experience in a TikTok post that received over 340,000 likes. At the top of the video, she reminds shoppers to always keep their receipts because of situations like this.
O’Neil explains, “I was here an hour ago and I got a pillow for my bed. It didn’t have a price tag on it so they went and found another one. There was only two of them in the store.”
“They found the other one, took the price tag off that, put it on mine. It was $12.99. I have the receipt,” she adds, holding up the paper.
Later, O’Neil returned to the same HomeGoods store to buy a second pillow. This is when things took a turn.
Same pillow, different price
O’Neil says she informed the HomeGoods worker that the pillow she was looking for, which she knew to be the only other one in the store, would not have a price tag on it because she had taken the price tag when she was in the store earlier.
“‘Well I can’t just take your word for it,’” the worker told her. O’Neil then asked if she could show them the receipt from earlier.
“‘No, we’re doing a price check,’” the worker allegedly said.
O’Neil, visibly frustrated, then reveals, “They come back. $19.99.”
“On my original receipt it says the name of the pillow and $12.99. On my new receipt, it says decorative pillows, $19.99,” she says holding up each receipt.
The HomeGoods shopper adds that she doesn’t feel as though it’s worth going back in to haggle over $7. But she is frustrated by the implication that she was trying to steal a pillow.
While O’Neil described herself as “irritated” by the situation, her viewers were even more upset on her behalf.
“Girl give me the damn receipts, imma go get you your $7,” said one commenter.
“I would’ve 100% gone back in to get my money back,” another said.
“That ‘It’s not worth it to go back in for $7’ mindset is exactly what the corporations are banking on,” a third chided.
Why were the HomeGoods pillows priced differently?
As several commenters pointed out, there are a few possible reasons why the HomeGoods pillows were priced differently.
One reason is that HomeGoods, like many discount retailers, receives merchandise from a variety of sources. This includes overstocked or discontinued products from others stores. Even though they may look the same, these items can arrive with slight variations in SKU numbers, or other identifying tags.
This can result in the system seeing them as different products with different prices. Additionally, if there is no barcode for the employee to scan, as in O’Neil’s case when she tried to buy the second pillow at HomeGoods, workers are often instructed to provide a price based on the most similar item on the floor. This is why keeping receipts and being firm on fair pricing is important when shopping in large retail chains.
The Daily Dot reached out to O’Neil via Instagram direct message and to HomeGoods via online contact form for further information.
@jessicaoneill7 Home Goods out here just choosing whatever prices they want! #fyp #homegoods ♬ original sound – Jessica O’Neill
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