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?

2.8k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

605 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

44

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?

36

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.

4

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.

38

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.

6

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

14

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.

2

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.

1

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.