Hero Grocery Clerk Shames Guy Who Stockpiled $10K In Toilet Paper, Refuses Refund

The shopper had a team of people working with him to buy up essential items to sell at a profit

An Australian man who stockpiled $10,000 worth of toilet and hand sanitizer during the pandemic to re-sell on eBay for a profit, tried to get a refund on some of his items from the store he purchased them from and the store owner’s response was a big, fat no.

To get around the limits set by the store to prevent this from happening in the first place, Newsweek reports that the man had a team of people buying up essential items at a Drakes Supermarket when the coronavirus pandemic began to hit Australia. He then intended to sell the items at an inflated price.

“I had my first customer yesterday who said he wanted to get a refund on 150 packets of 32-pack toilet paper and 150 units of one-liter [hand] sanitizer,” said John-Paul Drake, director of Drakes Supermarkets in Australia. “I told him that,” Drake said, showing his middle finger to the camera. Bless.

Drake said the man tried to get a refund when all of the items didn’t sell on eBay. “In the conversation [the shopper said] ‘my eBay site has been shut down,’ so we couldn’t profiteer off that,” Drake told ABC Radio Adelaide in Australia.

“The person had a team of people that bought the products because you’re only allowed to buy one of each at a time,” Drake said. “So you do your sums at 150 separate purchases to buy these. Absolutely disgraceful. The rest of my team [is] over this sort of behavior and having to police people taking more than they need. That’s a tough thing to deal with.”

This isn’t the first time a customer who initially tried profiting from the pandemic tried to return items that didn’t sell. Two brothers in Tennessee purchased thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and medical masks during the onset of the pandemic with plans to later resell it a higher rate. They are now being investigated by the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office for price gouging.

Currently, Australia has over 6500 coronavirus cases and 71 deaths according to Johns Hopkins University. Social distancing rules were imposed on March 21 and the state governments started to close “non-essential” services shortly after. As people continue to try to find necessary items for their families while being quarantined, customers like this should be ashamed of themselves. Trying to profit off the misfortunes of others is obscene.

Luckily, Drakes Supermarket took swift action and denied the customer’s request to return the items. On a brighter note, he and his team will have plenty of toilet paper to cry into for the foreseeable future.