You probably wouldn’t buy a brand-new car or a bicycle without a test run of them first, right? So ideally, you would ask to give a stroller a test run, especially if it’s particularly expensive. Unfortunately, one woman in Florida tried to do just that and had an incredibly unpleasant experience at Target. Now, she turned to TikTok for support after she and her husband were kicked out of a store for simply wanting to give the stroller a try. They were being responsible parents!
Alexa Fernandez (@alexan.fernandez on TikTok) shared her less-than-stellar experience after she says she was “treated like a criminal”. The expectant mother was at Target with her husband and they wanted to test out a few strollers to see which one would be best for their new baby. She thought this was being reasonable since many of these strollers were a “thousand-dollar purchase”. Naturally, you’d want a feel for a stroller like that to determine if it’s worth it.
Alexa asked an employee if they could have the zip-ties untied in the store, but he turned it down. He allegedly told them, “We don’t do that here.” Alexa explained employees at other Target stores were fine with accommodating. Why is this any different? So, Alexa and her husband did the next best thing: Testing out the stroller with it still zip-tied. This didn’t bode well with Target and, pretty soon, they were surrounded by several store employees.
Concerned, Target got an asset protection manager involved. “And she’s like, ‘Hey, we got word that you’re trying to steal these strollers.'” Alexa explained. The manager looked at a few of the strollers and noticed they were untied (which Alexa didn’t do) and they continued to accuse her. They were told to stop or else they would be “escorted off the premises like common criminals.”
Alexa finally decided to leave the store, strollerless, with her husband in tow and tears streaming down her face. When they arrived home, she spoke with somebody at a different Target store and was able to file a complaint. Alexa has since said about the matter, “Target, you need to do better because parents love Target registries and are obviously big supporters… We’re trying to buy a stroller from you.”
While some TikTok viewers said they would have just bought the stroller and returned it without testing it out, others agreed she should have been able to take the stroller on a test run, especially with an employee standing there.
Someone argued with other commenters, “Girl, no pregnant woman, and especially a pregnant woman with other kids, wants to spend money on a stroller only to see afterwards that it’s not what we want and have to make the trip back to return it and continue the cycle until we find one we like.” Another said, “THAT Target and THOSE employees need to do better. That was so unnecessary on their part.”
Personally, I can’t see the problem with allowing a soon-to-be-mother to take a closer look at a stroller. You can’t really get a feel of what it’s going to be like by ordering one online or only getting to see it up close without testing it out. I think this Target had a major overreaction on this one.
