Does this count as age or wealth discrimination?

The clerk was inexperienced and/or having a bad day. It has nothing to do with you or the issues you brought up in your question.

The fact that they’re leading you out of the store seems pretty rude in my opinion. It seems like it was said with carelessness. I am not sure of her tone, so that could also have made a big difference.

I’ve always found speaking to a sales person’s manager has a way of taking their snooty attitude down a couple of notches, especially when you can prove that they don’t know their own brand’s product line. You could have said something like this:

“Ok, well is there a manager around or someone who I can talk to who is more familiar with your full product line? Because I’m quite certain it’s on your website. Thanks for getting them for me.” (said with a smile).

My friend is a rich redneck who lives in a lovely mansion in a gated community. He took cash to buy a new Mustang and the Ford guys treated him like dirt. He waved his wad of cash and basically told them to kiss it for treating him like dirt.

It’s amazing how people treat others and how that correponds to how they perceive you and judge you on nothing more than appearance. One really wealthy person told me the secret to success is treating everyone the same, with kindness, from your mailman to your judges.

Yes, she was wrong. That just shows that she works at a wanna be store not a am there store.

Maybe she was just having a bad day. Maybe you were. Maybe you reminded her of someone she didn’t like in high school, and she flashed back to sophomore year and being teased on the school bus. Maybe she was an idiot. Maybe it was her first day on the job, and she didn’t want to appear not to know the catalog, so she pretended that she did. Maybe your boyfriend’s shoes reminded her of a guy whose mother was a teacher she had in elementary school who was mean to her once, or maybe she recognized your boyfriend as the friend of an old flame. Maybe someone else was walking in the door behind you waving money, and she wanted to wait on that customer instead.

Who knows?

People do discriminate all the time, and it’s perfectly legal and okay. For example, that’s why you have the boyfriend you do have instead of, oh, me, for example, or some other Tom, Dick or Harry. Because you discriminated, that’s why! (Well, that and you don’t really know me. I’m a hell of a kisser, really, and way nicer than this once you get to know me. Tom, Dick and Harry really are jerks; I can tell you that because I know them and I discriminate against them, too.)

On the other hand, maybe it was just the end of her shift, and she didn’t want to get into a long back-and-forth over a defective belt that wasn’t going to net her anything in commission and she knows you’re only in the store once in a blue moon anyway, and that catalog is so hard to search, and she’s really gotta hit the can and she doesn’t want to hit that freeway traffic and be late to the daycare center again… yada yada.

Just try again sometime.

Nah, she was just a bitch.

She was quite possibly being judgemental. It certainly happens. How you deal with it’s what really matters though. You can let it eat at you or treat it with the contempt it deserves, buy the belt online and don’t take some rude sales assistant’s attitude to heart. It says more about her than you.

If you feel you need to do something, contact their head office and complain.

What a bitch. Who cares if she’s having a bad day? You don’t treat people like that. I have many bad days at my hospital job and I’d never let myself treat people like that. Shame on her.

It’s legal sure but it’s bad business. I would complain to the store manager. Tell them that she was rude to you, a loyal and paying customer when you came in with a simple question.

Definitely tell her manager. They’ll appreciate the input from you. Trust me.

Phone the head office of that store and relay the same question to them.
I am sure that you would surely get a positive response, as money is money to business people plus the “word of mouth“advertising would severely effect their sales , should it ever be pointed out on “UTube”.
Send it A.S.A.P.

Probably not. I see this same behavior in my co-workers: “I don’t feel like going to the trouble to fish it out of storage, so we’re out of the product.”

Maybe she really didn’t have a chain belt. Or worse she wanted the last one for herself. I did something like that when I worked at a video station… when a good movie was returned I signed it out myself instead of putting it back on the self, and maybe that’s what happened to you.

if she really didn’t have one though, I feel as that there are better ways of saying it than to suggest I go to a store like Hot Topic (when obviously Bebe is nothing like that) or say that they don’t even make them for Bebe when they actually do.