"Treat Us Like Criminals" — Pregnant Mom Said Target Workers Wouldn’t Let Her Test Stroller

An expecting mother said she was accused of attempting to steal strollers while testing them out at a Target location. Alex Fernandez (@alexan.fernandez) said her experience at one Target store differed greatly from another visit to a different site while shopping for a baby carriage.

She delineated her grievances with store staff members in a series of TikToks.

One begins with a snippet of her walking through the Target store. Her voice cracked, and she stated she was "treated like a criminal" because she wanted to test some of the strollers offered at the popular retail chain.

Following this, the clip cuts to her speaking directly into the camera, where she breaks down the "full story" of what occurred during her visit.

She said she visited the store to test out strollers with her husband. Before that, she had visited the store with her friend the night before at a different store.

She spoke with the manager of that particular store and asked if they could cut the zip ties keeping the strollers in place.

Since it was a "thousand-dollar purchase," Alex wanted to ensure that whichever stroller she purchased was one she could easily manage. She said she wanted to get a feel for the locking/unlocking mechanism, and the Target manager at this particular location didn't seem to take any issue with this request.

Ultimately, she didn't buy a stroller that evening because the store didn't contain the model that she really had her eye on, a Mockingbird variant.

The following day, she went to another Target store with her husband, which had the model she intended to buy.

Like the previous store, this one also featured a slew of stroller offerings secured with zip ties. After calling for help by pressing a button that called for a store associate, she says that a "rude" manager approached her and her significant other.

From the start, Alex's assessment of the Target worker indicates that the man didn't seem enthused about helping her out.

After asking the manager if he could untie the stroller as they did at the previous Target so she could try out the Mockingbird stroller, she said the store manager promptly informed her and her husband that they don't offer that service for customers at this particular location.

She then asked the manager if there were any other suggestions he had that would allow them to test the stroller out. However, the TikToker said he maintained his rude stance and was generally unhelpful.

"He's just being snippy and rude," she said of the employee's attitude.

After the man left the area, Alex decided to interact with the offering while it was still zip-tied to assess its build quality and learn how to collapse and open the stroller to full size.

Not long after doing so, the store's asset manager approached her and her husband, saying that they had received word that a couple was in the store attempting to steal a stroller.

She said her husband was flabbergasted by the observation. "Why is my seven-month-old pregnant wife just going to run out of here with a stroller?" he asked.

"No, we're not stealing your strollers, we're just looking at them," Alex said they told the Target worker.

Upon further inspection, the worker highlighted that some of the strollers had their zip ties removed. However, Alex stated that these specific models had their zip ties broken before she requested the Mockingbird be extricated from its plastic fetters.

Alex's husband told the employees that the ties were already broken and that they were simply checking out the Mockingbird stroller while it was stuck in place.

This prompted one of the employees to state that they weren't allowed to touch the strollers, and that they were display models only to be viewed, not fiddled with.

Moreover, both she and her husband were warned that if they continued touching the strollers, they would subsequently be "escorted off the premises."

Alex was taken aback by this statement, as she felt that she and her partner were being treated "like common criminals."

At this point, several other store associates became involved in the incident, with one of them asking Alex what was wrong. The TikToker says that she became emotional and started crying despite doing nothing wrong. Ultimately, she and her husband were asked to leave the vicinity, and they complied.

Upset over the interaction, Alex calls out Target towards the latter portion of her video, asking the retailer to be more considerate of its patrons.

Additionally, she said that workers at the store who gave her and her husband a hard time wouldn't give them the district manager's contact information when asked.

However, she went back to the other Target store and shared her experience with the manager there, who stated that they didn't think there was any reason they couldn't let the couple try out the strollers. They then apologized to Alex and her partner for not having the Mockingbird model she wanted in stock; otherwise, they would've let her use it without a problem.

Although, they did offer to send in a formal complaint to the district manager on their behalf to better come up with a solution to their gripe and remedy the problem they had with Target.

"Shows what a little bit of humanity can do. Ultimately, I have to say I'm really disappointed. It does not make me want to support Target," she added.

She then closed out her clip, stating, "It just feels like so many things escalated so quickly and for no reason. To the point where my husband is fuming and I'm crying, walking out of a Target. And all we wanted to do was test a stroller. That was it," she said to the camera.