T.J. Maxx and other discount retailers are a popular topic on TikTok—from people questioning the quality of food items sold there to the hair products, there’s a hint of doubt among content creators about the TJX umbrella, that owns T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods.
In the latest video showing what’s on the racks at their local T.J. Maxx, Sergio (@sergiossectret) shows what he claims is a counterfeit Balmain T-shirt being sold for $279.99 (a men’s Balmain T-shirt retails anywhere from roughly $200-$700).
The shirt, Sergio says in the video, had its tags “re-sewn” at the neck and side seam, implying that the garment is a plain T-shirt with Balmain tags sewn into it and returned to the store.
“They cut the tag out and re-stitched it on this regular shirt,” Sergio says. “You look on the inside, you can tell that it’s reattached. Damn, y’all really played the system.”
“Yall got wayy to much time on y’all’s hands,” he adds in the caption.
His video was viewed 1.2 million times since it was posted on June 2.
@sergiossecret yall got wayy to much time on y’all’s hands #tjmaxx #ticketswap #balmain #nordstromrack ♬ original sound – Sergiossecret
Some commenters who said they have worked in retail stores like Zara wrote they saw something similar before, or that they had accidentally bought items that had been switched in a similar manner.
“I used to work at Zara and they would do this allll the time,” one commenter wrote.
“Okay because this happened at my local TJ Maxx!” another commenter wrote. “Tried on a jacket (3x too big), took a picture of the style tag, called the brand, style nonexistent.”
“This is every dept retail with high end brands I think,” a commenter wrote. “I’ve worked at Bloomingdales, we would get people trying to pull this all the time.”
Others shared previous experiences working for designer brands, writing that there is a chance the shirt could be legitimate.
“I worked for a fashion company and we hand stitched on the designer labels / tags because they didn’t want the factories knowing the exact specs,” a commenter wrote.
“Balmain tags are (hand) stitched in,” another commenter wrote.
The Daily Dot has reached out to @sergiossecrets via email regarding the video, as well as to T.J. Maxx directly via email.
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