On Nov. 5, Sephora started its annual big sale, 20 percent off entire site. The site collapsed due to too much traffic. However, after many customers signed in, Asian in particular, found their accounts were locked by Sephora for no reason.
Following Nov. 6, blocking basic BI, VIB and VIBR members of actual or perceived Chinese or Asian descent, Sephora continued to send promotional emails to those same blocked customers for additional discount and offers despite the fact that these customers were unable to sign into their Sephora accounts.
According to Sephora’s membership, any customer can enroll in the basic Beauty Insider program and earn points with their purchases; customers who spend a minimum of $350 in a calendar year qualify for membership as a “Very Important Beauty Insider” and customers who spend $1000 in a calendar year qualify for membership as “Very Important Beauty Insider Rough”。
In previous years, everyone could enjoy this sale, but in this year it only opened to VIBR (Very Important Beauty Insider Rouge) and VIB (Very Important Beauty Insider), BI (Beauty Insider) cannot take the discount unless they had private invitation code from VIBR or VIB. And every VIBR and VIB only had one code.
What annoyed customers was many VIB and VIBR found their orders were compulsively cancelled and some of them even could not sign in.
Other domain email addresses were not blocked or deactivated during the period of the discount offer, while thousands of actual or perceived Chinese or Asian customers’ accounts were blocked, and remain blocked, or have had their accounts permanently deactivated.
On the document, they list damages to potential class members, including loss of all accumulated reward points, for those VIB and VIBR customers deactivated, their VIB status was lost. Therefore, in order to return to their prior membership status, these individuals must spend an additional $3500 or $1000 in a calendar year. Other benefits associated with membership, including products that members could redeem in exchange for points, coupons, free shipping and free beauty consultations were also lost.
Yanran Zhu, a Michigan State University student, has VIB status in Sephora. She used Hotmail to register her account and fortunately, her account was not be blocked.
On Nov 8, Yanran received a promotional email from Sephora about discount offer entitled “Final days for 20% off + Urban Decay Reward”。 This promotional email included another link to the 20 percent off coupon and a promotional code for online use. It also offered an eye products gift set redeemable for 500 points, exclusively to VIB members.
“When they are trying to make money, they think about Chinese people, but when there is a discount, they separate us from the sale.”
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