This mom used Target’s return policy to score more than $750 in refunds, and the internet can’t decide if she’s a hero or a villain
Anyone with kids of a certain age knows how hard it can be when they hit those growth spurts. The grocery bill goes up, but even worse—they grow out of all their clothes, like, instantly. That’s why one mom has gone viral with her Target hack on TikTok, but the internet is divided about whether she’s saving money for good or for evil.
Mom Tiarra Williams regularly shares videos where she takes a massive haul of kids’ clothes from the Target Brand Cat & Jack and returns them—up to a full year after purchase, even if the reason she’s returning them is simply that her daughter grew out of them.
“The season changed. My girl grew. It’s time to head to Target and get us something new,” Williams says in the video as the camera pans over piles of Cat & Jack clothing and shoes.
@tiarra_zylah Another successful Cat and Jack return! 🤑🥳 We love Target! 🥰❤️ #catandjack #target #toddlers #save #fashion #fyp
♬ original sound – Tiarra Williams
She explains that she uses the Target app to pull up her digital receipts and that the return process is time-consuming—about 45 minutes for the haul shown in the video. But at the end, Williams shows her new receipt, which displays just under $750 refunded to her. Then she shows her and her daughter heading into Target to use that money for some new clothes and shoes.
Target has a very generous return policy for what it calls its “Owned Brands.” This includes Cat & Jack, as well as favorites like A New Day, Ava and Viv, Opalhouse, Pillowfort, Room Essentials, and Threshold. According to the Target website, “If you’re not satisfied with any Target Owned Brand item, return it within one year with a receipt for an exchange or a refund.”
This is where Williams’ video gets a little sticky. There’s nothing in the return policy that expressly forbids parents from returning clothes simply because their kids grew out of them within a year, but it’s pretty clear that the spirit of the policy is to be able to return or exchange clothes and items that aren’t good quality and don’t hold up over the long-term. Williams has disabled comments on the video, but according to Scary Mommy, viewers were pretty divided before she did.
One user wrote, “This is so dishonest,” to which Williams replied, “I was honest when I told them that she could no longer fit any of it. They still accepted it. So what’s YOUR problem? Because they didn’t have one. 😊”
Another commenter added, “Yeah…not the spirit of the policy. If your kid wears through the clothes or damages them…return them. Change out your wardrobe cause the kid grew…no.” Yet another said, “It’s supposed to be a quality guarantee for rips/damage/etc. the original policy had to be the same size 😂 it’s not meant to clothe them continuously.”
Williams replied saying she was honest with Target employees about the reason she was returning all the items, and wrote, “So why did they accept all of my items? 😁”
But anyone who’s ever worked retail knows why: It’s just not worth it to have a fight with a customer over a loophole like this. Those employees may have even seen Williams recording for TikTok and been even warier of calling her out—they probably had no interest in getting put on blast on social media for doing their jobs.
So can you do this? Technically, yes. But is it worth the risk of ruining the return policy for everyone? No.
