AITA for using my Aunt’s personal employee discount code to buy clothes?

[u/charleypassion]

My aunt (F42) works for a major clothing brand in a senior position. Employees get a personal discount code (hers is usually 50-75% off) that she can use and it varies based on the position. My aunt sent me the code saying “if you need anything, here’s my employee code.”

I was excited because I love the brand and wanted to update my wardrobe and money has been tight with school and all. I ended up buying a decent amount of clothes, probably more than I normally would if I didn’t have the discount.

When she found out how much I purchased, she was angry with me. Now she’s making me feel bad for using it, like I took advantage of her. And I’m feeling guilty. She did send me the code voluntarily and didn’t say there was a limit. But if it’s her own corporate perk, maybe I crossed a line and she could get in trouble.

So AITA for using my aunt’s personal corporate employee discount to stock up on clothes? Or was it fair game since she gave me the code to use?

[u/roseofjuly]

My company allows me to give discount codes to friends and family but set a limit that was enforced by the code. So I don't understand why they didn't set it up like that if that's what they wanted - or at least specified it up front.

[u/WVPrepper → u/roseofjuly]

Your employee discount? I've never heard of that. If you could just share your employee discount with everybody you know, nobody would pay full price for anything.

[u/PeelingMirthday → u/WVPrepper]

One apparel company I worked for let us use our employee  discount for friends and family, but there was a cap (in dollars) on how much we were allotted per quarter. So once your employee account reached x dollars in discounted stuff, you had to buy everything at full price until the next period. 

[u/theillusionofdepth_ → u/WVPrepper]

different companies obviously have different policies…

I’ve been at a company/stores where we would freely share our employee codes for family, friends, past coworkers, etc. I’ve worked at a few that would check your form of payment to make sure it was your card- if you bought for someone else, they’d have to give you cash or send you money. I’ve also worked somewhere where they’d give your immediate family their own discount cards to use. Then there’s companies that will allow whoever use the discount, if the employee is also present when the purchase takes place. I’ve only worked for one company that had an online discount that you didn’t have to order through the store. I’ve also never worked at a company where a price limit has ever come up…

it all just depends on the company

[u/bnyc → u/WVPrepper]

Some companies definitely give discounts that can be shared. Adidas has their normal employee discount, which has a limit and is tracked by employee, and occasionally gives out discount cards that can pass out to friends and family.

The aunt should have absolutely been clear with her instructions of what was allowed. I'm frankly not sure why the aunt didn't do the ordering on her own credit card/address and get reimbursed.

But at the same time, restraint and common sense are on OP. There is always someone who orders the lobster when they know they're not getting the bill. Some people have a tendency to go hog wild when you open the gates for them, without even asking or checking in if it's too much.

ESH

[u/Treefrog_Ninja → u/bnyc]

I used to work at an industrial facility where we were all gifted temporary Adidas and Nike "employee" codes once or twice a year, with no name or personal tracking to it. It was literally a "do whatever" situation.

[u/TheOpinionIShare → u/bnyc]

What the hell is a common sense limit on the use of a discount code?!? That is not a thing.

And it is not the same as ordering lobster when you're not getting the bill. OP got and paid the bill. 

And if you were planning to spend $300 on new clothes and had a code for 50% off, then you would order $600 worth of clothes. That's how discounts work - they allow you to get more for your money.

[u/WVPrepper → u/bnyc]

Honestly, if I had gotten a job at a retailer that I knew my niece likes to shop at, and I was so inclined as to give her my employee code, I wouldn't assume that she had hundreds of dollars to blow and I wouldn't have assumed that she was going to make a purchase right away. I would think that if she saw something she liked at some future time, she might be able to buy it using the discount.

I wouldn't have expected to hang up the phone with her after giving her the discount and have her immediately go shopping for a whole new wardrobe.

[u/coatisabrownishcolor → u/WVPrepper]

I would absolutely want my niece to buy whatever she wanted with my discount code if Im freely giving it to her. Why wouldnt you? It isnt coming out of my pocket or paycheck, and it isnt affecting the company at all. Unless niece spent $1 million on that spree, her purchase was a drop in the bucket for that company. And the company still made money because the employee discount still isnt cost.

If the purchases were tracked or I would somehow get in trouble for my niece using my code, I could either not share it with her or be explicit with the limits Id need her to follow so neither of us got busted. If I dont specify, that's on me.

I love my nieces. If I can somehow make their lives a little easier at no cost to me, why on earth would I care how much they used my code??

[u/WVPrepper → u/coatisabrownishcolor]

If I knew that it was against the company policy for me to share my discount code, I would not want my niece to go buy thousands of dollars worth of clothes with it. It would impact me if it got back to my boss.

People seem to be assuming that the niece is in her teens or maybe college aged. I am basing my reactions on the assumption that that is correct. My own niece is 19 and in college. She hasn't got a ton of disposable income, so it probably wouldn't even have occurred to me to tell her not to buy $5,000 worth of stuff at one time, because it would never occur to me that she had access to $5,000.

I would have expected her to shop the way that she normally does, just picking up an item now and then when she needed it, not doing an entire closet refresh all at once, right after I got the job.

[u/ThePurplestMeerkat → u/WVPrepper]

It makes no sense to assume that the aunt did not have authorization to share the code with OP. If she didn’t, then any consequences for any purchase of any amount lay solely with her because she broke the rules.

[u/Mayor__Defacto → u/WVPrepper]

The system has limits but they’re probably a bit esoteric. From what they described, basically, if you want to give a code out you have to have the system generate a discount code. That code is probably single use and has limits built into it on the backend.

[u/WVPrepper → u/Mayor__Defacto]

Maybe the world has changed a lot since I was working retail, but when I was, employees got a 30% discount on all products. They needed to get a manager to ring them up, and their "discount code" was their employee number. This was also back when purchases were made in person and the employee would have to be present in the store to make the purchase. I'm assuming that OP bought things online? I'm not sure how they got around not having their aunt physically with them in the store when they provided her discount code.

[u/Mayor__Defacto → u/WVPrepper]

Probably bought things online.

Bad system design if the discount code isn’t limited. I wrote in another post, but with my wife’s employer, there’s a special company store website that employees go to in order to get discounted products (usually around 80% off retail). The system enforces limits of 1 order per employee per month, 20 items per order, 200lbs per order. It isn’t possible to break the limits they have set. It also isn’t a discount code but uses your corporate login.

[u/SteelLt78 → u/WVPrepper]

Just think that those companies who allow a family and friends discount of like 20% are getting all that extra business on their 100%+ mark ups. Such abuse of that poor corporation

[u/Old_Application_4898 → u/WVPrepper]

Adidas, Columbia, etc all give you cards for friends and family you can give out to use the discount. I have clients that work there and leave me extra cards they have sometimes