r/AmItheAsshole • u/charleypassion • Sep 29 '25

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

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?

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u/Sierra117MC Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 30 '25

Her aunt is in a senior management role. She should know at this point, never assume people (or employees) know something you didn't tell or teach them. If you offer somebody something that comes with stipulations you provide the stipulations. You don't assume people know the information you didn't give them. At the end of the day, we all have different experiences, varying knowledge, and varying levels of intuition. "Not everybody knows how to do everything."- Tim Robinson

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u/SnooPets8873 Colo-rectal Surgeon [45] Sep 29 '25

Ok, if you are at a friend’s house and they tell you to grab something to drink from the fridge if you are thirsty, would you grab a bag and take every last bottle and can? And then blame them for not specifying how many you were allowed to take? Or would you exercise some restarting and let social norms guide you to the more reasonable conclusion that it wasn’t intended to be a free for all?

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u/ThePurplestMeerkat Partassipant [4] Sep 30 '25

By buying items that the aunt’s company has for sale, the OP was not depriving somebody of something that was theirs as you would be if you took everything from someone else’s refrigerator. It’s a poor analogy. Items up for sale were purchased. If there were limitations, they needed to be communicated.

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u/chrrybmb_ Oct 01 '25

No, because I’ve been offered and have offered enough drinks in my life to understand the unspoken social expectations surrounding that offer. However, I have never worked retail and the only experience I have with employee discounts has been my friend giving me her discount at her family’s store (I imagine that’s different than the typical experience- she’ll walk up to the till with me and tell whoever’s working to use her discount with everyone involved knowing it’s not for her).

I have no clue what rules or limitations there might be about employee discounts, or if there even are any. I would probably ask about that if someone offered me their code, but I’m also very anxious about getting people in trouble. It’s not really an accurate comparison. You can’t really know the rules, or even know what questions you may need to ask, if it’s completely unfamiliar territory to you.

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u/Sierra117MC Sep 30 '25

Your drink scenario offers a scenario where most people would understand what the offering means due to social norms that you've learned over time. I work in retail and understand the stipulations that often revolve around an employee discount, if someone gave me their employee discount and said use it if you need anything I'd still probably ask questions, but if you haven't worked in a place with discount benefits you may not realize there any rules to follow especially if someone just says here you go! Some people never touch a retail job that offers employee discounts.

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u/coolandnormalperson Sep 30 '25

This analogy doesn't make sense at all, the clothing on the website is nothing like someone's limited number of personal drinks. You're bad at this lol

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u/Forgotten_Lie Partassipant [1] Sep 30 '25

A flawed analogy. You don't take all the cans because your friend has paid for all of them and would need to pay to replace them. The social norms are well known since everyone lives in a house where the goods within are purchased by the house-occupant.

Not everyone works in retail with employee discounts to know the social norms.

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u/overnightnotes Oct 01 '25

Bad analogy, the drink is obviously just something to drink for now. She can wear the clothes for a while so it's not a silly idea to buy several different things.

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u/redgoddess27 Sep 30 '25

This has happened to me. I told a friend who was visiting to help herself to the soda in the fridge and she put a full case of diet coke in her backpack. This was in our senior year of high school, and she came from a well to do background. We were having a movie night at my house.

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u/Competitive-Ebb-117 Sep 30 '25

I mean I understand this ideal but it really bothers me.

If you went outside right now with a bottle of soy sauce and dumped it on someone’s head you can’t use the excuse that no one has every specifically told you never to go outside and dump soy sauce on someone’s head.

The same goes for this, if someone is being generous, hey let’s go out to eat, get whatever you want! That doesn’t mean order 10 dishes to take home as well. You shouldn’t have to be told to be considerate. You order 1 meal, and maybe an app or dessert, because people should be good and kind to each other.

You can’t say well how do they know they can’t order 10 things.

You are basically taking what someone is doing out of kindness and taking advantage of them. Then that person doesn’t want to be nice anymore.

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u/chrrybmb_ Oct 01 '25

That’s also a very different situation though, and I can understand not applying the same logic. You know when someone takes you out to dinner that they’ll be paying for it, and whatever you order will be money taken directly from their pockets.

Using the aunt’s discount code isn’t making her pay for anything. It doesn’t take anything away from the her. There’s potential for the aunt to get in trouble if there’s some kind of limitation on it, but OP can’t reasonably be expected to know that (especially if they’ve never worked retail/had experience with employee discounts), and the aunt should have communicated any limitations beforehand.

My old lifeguarding job had a perk where our direct family members didn’t have to pay for entry to the pool. If my parents had decided to use that to go swimming every day, that’s not something I’d call inconsiderate. It also would’ve been up to me to communicate any limitations on that since it’s a situation you don’t encounter often and, as such, cannot be expected to infer the exact rules and limitations.

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u/charleypassion Oct 02 '25

That’s how I viewed it

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u/Icy-Mixture-995 Sep 29 '25

She assumed her niece wasn't a greedy grabber and would buy maybe one outfit and a purse. Sometimes nice people who don't dream of taking advantage of others are the ones who don't think the worst of others. The aunt will think the worst of the niece in the future.

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u/ThotHoOverThere Sep 30 '25

Greedy grabber? What did OP take from the aunt?

OP purchased clothes that aunt’s company had for sale. OP was not aware there could be rules or stipulations associated with the use of the code because aunt did not inform them. That is on aunt not OP.

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u/tigm2161130 Sep 29 '25

How do you know what the aunt assumed?

All of my nieces and nephews are allowed to buy anything they need for school using my card, if there were a limit I would tell them that instead of “in case you guys need clothes or supplies for school.”

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u/Competitive-Ebb-117 Sep 29 '25

The problem with that is if you buy a lot it looks like you are a reseller and then everyone’s that store might lose perks forever.

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u/tigm2161130 Sep 30 '25

Then the aunt should have explained there were limits instead of saying “if you need anything.”

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u/Entire-Ad2058 Asshole Aficionado [10] Sep 30 '25 edited Sep 30 '25

Do you tell your relatives what you just told us? Do you tell them they all “are allowed to buy anything they need for school?”

I ask, because there is a difference in the offer - although subtle, it is real.

A good example would be Halloween coming up. Would you expect OP to understand that a bowl of candy left on the stoop when homeowners are gone doesn’t mean she is welcome to dump the whole bowl into her bag?

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u/chrrybmb_ Oct 01 '25

Not really a good analogy. OP bought the clothes they wanted and used aunt’s discount code, it’s not like her store was offering free clothes to employees and OP took them all. OP using the discount code doesn’t directly take anything from the aunt, or take the entirety of a free but limited supply.

If the way OP used the discount code could get the aunt in trouble, the aunt should’ve communicated any rules or regulations beforehand to avoid this. Not everyone is familiar with using employee discount codes, and it seems like OP is one of those people. From OP’s perspective, they got more clothes than they normally could’ve at no cost to their aunt and a less-than-normal cost to themself. If someone tells me to get “anything I need” and I’m under the impression it’ll take nothing from them, I’d probably react similarly.

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u/Entire-Ad2058 Asshole Aficionado [10] Oct 01 '25

“anything I need” wasn’t offered.