A video circulating on social media shows the moment a watch shop employee at a Philadelphia mall called security on a Black customer after she broke his watch and told him she was unable to repair it.
The footage shows the customer’s encounter with a female staff member at a watch store, as well as members of mall security inside the Willow Grove Park shopping center.
In his conversation with a young security guard, the customer explains that he visited the shop to get a new battery for his watch.
He said that when the staff member replaced the old battery, she told him that she couldn’t screw the watch cover back on and that he could “just leave,” and she wouldn’t charge him.
The customer claimed that he informed the employee that if he took his watch to another store that could repair it, he would send the bill to her shop because she had broken the watch.
At this point, the employee interjects and tells the guard that she offered to send the watch to another repair vendor the shop contracts with, but the customer refused the service and requested his watch be fixed then and there.
“I told him there’s probably debris in the screw hole, and I can’t screw it in,” the employee says. “I gave him the option that we can send it out to our repair shop, and he says no, so there’s nothing else I can do, sir.”
The staffer then looks at another security guard and asks, “Can you please remove him?”
Off camera, the staffer breaks out in tears, eliciting questions from a bystander taking video of the interaction.
“Why are you crying?” the bystander asks.
“Because I’m trying to explain to you —” the staff member tearfully says.
“There’s no need to cry. This is ridiculous. This is so stupid,” the bystander says.
The customer continues talking to the security guard about how to resolve the situation, when a head security member steps in to get his side of the story.
The video was reshared to other platforms, garnering numerous reactions from viewers who questioned why the staff member chose to escalate the situation to security.
“Lol this is not an issue a mall security guy is supposed to deal with. You need to talk to a manager of the specific store. Like seriously….that mall kid is not trained to resolve these types of customer disputes,” one TikTok user wrote.
“Security, nor the police can’t do a thing. It’s civil. Sue the biz owner and employee if you so choose. But it’s def not a police or security matter,” another person added.
Others argued that the matter could have been resolved differently, even after the customer declined the employee’s offer to send the watch off to a repair vendor.
“1.) The bill would fall on the store because she easily unscrewed it. 2.) If she can’t do it, he should have spoken to a supervisor so that the company can cover the cost or replacement. 3.) It sounds like she was in over her head,” another comment read.
“He’s right, but 1st, you took an expensive watch to a mall kiosk. Second, she offered a solution to send it off to be repaired, but you declined. It’s clearly beyond her capability. Just take it to a reputable repair company,” one person posted.
