Sephora slapped with lawsuit by Asian customers for discrimination

A lawsuit slapped on American cosmetics retailer, Sephora USA Inc., accused them of discriminating against Asian customers by blocking their online accounts on the suspicion that they were bulk-buying discounted products solely for the purpose of selling them again.

The case, numbered 14-cv-9181, Xiao Xiao v. Sephora USA Inc., was filed in Manhattan’s federal court, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, on Tuesday by Xiao Xiao, Tiantian Zou, Man Xu and Jiali Chen, Americans of Chinese origin.

Xiao Xiao and Tiantian Zou are from New York City, while Man Xu and Jiali Chen are from Philadelphia and Ohio respectively.

The plaintiffs were irked by the account deactivation and loss of every single hard earned reward point after purchasing products worth hundreds of dollars from the cosmetics retailer.

Events leading to this lawsuit is a November 6 promotional sale by Sephora, which resulted in a website crash. At that time, Sephora claimed that the crash was because of several bulk shoppers trying to buy as much merchandise possible in order to sell again for a substantial profit.

The lawsuit claims that, after the crash, the customers who were blocked from the site were those with e-mail addresses arising from Chinese domains or those having Asian names.

The suit also said hundreds of Asian shoppers vented their anger on facebook when they were unable to get into their Sephora accounts, with a few even going a step further by accusing the company of racism.

No comment could be elicited from Sephora nor LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc., its parent company which is also a defendant.

Founded in 1970 in Paris, Sephora has footprint in 29 countries with 1,900 stores.

Settling suits this year against Sephora, Barneys and Macy’s too accused the cosmetics retailer of suspecting Asian origin customers and other minorities of shoplifting. Still, Sephora could be the first retailer to face a suit claiming discrimination against a customer’s online account privileges.

All four Asian origin plaintiffs are requesting a court order barring Sephora from continuing with the alleged discrimination and are also claiming unspecified monetary compensation.