Sephora staff in NY stole my point and redeem the rewards for skincare product

[Sephorauseryoyo]

For all Sephora users, please read this carefully and see if it resonates with you. This is the reason why I was "downgraded" to a regular Sephora member. It’s been six years; I was a Rogue member at Sephora, with nearly 20,000 points in my account. I barely used points and always waited for the sample products I liked to redeem.

In 2018, I traveled to NYC near Penn Station and made a quick purchase of a lipstick at the Sephora near 34th Street. After that nightmare happened: all my points were redeemed at the same store for over 10 bottles of Shiseido cream. How would I know? I called Sephora and told them that my points were all stolen in one night. When I received the redemption receipt, I was shocked.

They tracked down the location where the products were redeemed, and it was the one near Penn Station. I called their manager, and the answer from them was shocking: an Asian woman came to the store and told the staff that she had to go back to Asia. She gave them the number to pull up the account, which appeared to be mine, and they allowed her to redeem the product.

See any problems? They recognized her as me because my last name is an Asian last name. Whenever the woman came to the store, they thought she was me. They asked me if I shared my account with a friend, and I told them this is my account; I didn’t share it with anyone. They "educated" me not to give my number to anyone so they won't use it in the Sephora store.

At the end, the customer service gave my points back... but do you think that’s the end of the story? No. A few days later, my points were redeemed online. I called again, and the customer service from Sephora told me that it had never happened before, and they promised to refund my points. What scared me was how and who had my account info and easily accessed my account? I couldn’t think of anything else but something wrong within the staff.

In order to keep my info safe, I did two things: first, I stopped the Sephora credit card. Second, I consulted with Sephora about how to avoid this again; their solution was to transfer my account to a different number or email, so I gave them a totally different one. Now all the info was new, the only thing Sephora told me was after my account changed, I’m no longer a Rogue member and I have to purchase more in order to maintain the level. Great, okay.

So, for the last couple of years, I kept tracking my account, seeing if my points were taken off without any purchase. It’s no longer about this account anymore; I wanted to see if my guess was right - staff in the Sephora accessed the account of an inactive user or someone who has many points and used their points, or a client with an Asian last name. Why did I guess that? As Asians, we do not want to bring more troubles; life is difficult and busy enough already in the US, so Asian clients will not go back and ask where their points are.

Guess what, my points went down again... this time, 500 points off and I got the emailed receipt saying that the redemption was in NY?! Again! First of all, I am far away from NY, and second, this action was redeemed without any purchase, only to redeem the product. Which means, sit tight, it was not a customer who accidentally used my account to purchase, otherwise, every Sephora member would want to gain points by purchasing. I would receive a purchase receipt in my email, only a redemption receipt email.

This morning, as I received the email telling me my redeem of a Shuwashoo skincare pack was successful. made this decision to post this, and I want Sephora really look into the customer’s privacy security and staff management, there is a huge problem within the company that customers spent money but their benefit was stolen at the same time. Sephora used to be my only cosmetic store, after that it’s not anymore. I’m a lazy person so barely change my habit of shopping, now in order to stop this heartbroken things happens, I have to variate my purchase on different brands. For someone who doesn't relate to me, think about this… you spend a long time playing games or gain a lot of raffle tickets at the arcade, and waited to get the display pink bear back on the shelf.. one day when you use a small amount to exchange a small ring from the counter and all of the sudden all your tickets were gone…

[DaneeBT]

Hi @Sephorauseryoyo I'm so sorry to hear about this experience. I'm sending you a PM.