Saks Off 5th refuses refund for a customer because the dress smelled like ‘soy sauce’

A TikTok video of an Asian woman claiming that Saks Off 5th refused her a refund because the dress smelled like ‘soy sauce’ is going viral.

Tiffany Chen posted a video on TikTok about her racist experience with Saks Off 5th.

Chen purchased the dress online on February 17 and received it a week later on February 24. The next day, she visited Saks Off 5th near the Beverly Center in Los Angeles to return the dress.

She said, “I brought it in and immediately the woman scanned my receipt and then she picked it up to smell it and walked over to her manager and basically was like, ‘I can’t accept this return.’ The kicker was she smelled the dress and said the dress smelled like soy sauce. She looked at me and said, ‘Yes, it smells like soy sauce. You can’t return this. This is a damaged item.”

Having felt that their response was racially charged, Chen’s boyfriend confronted the employee, but she replied, “I have the right to say what I want to say.”

In response, Saks Off 5th said, “We do not allow any discrimination against customers,” adding, “We will take appropriate measures to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.”

Chen said on Instagram, “It was shocking that someone was so confidently racist,” and “Asian people living in the United States will sympathize,” revealing the reason for posting the video.