Tori Perrotti aka Target Tori most loved after David Leavitt Twitter trolling over mis-priced Oral B Pro 5000 electric toothbrush.
A Target customer’s attempt to publicly shame a Massachusetts store manager over her refusal to sell him a mis-priced electronic toothbrush has backfired after the self acclaimed ‘award winning journalist’ found themselves widely maligned on social media.
The incident began Friday when David Leavitt, whose Twitter biography describes him as an award-winning journalist for multiple media outlets, tried purchasing an Oral B Pro 5000 electric toothbrush (normally retailing at $89) that was marked for sale for $.01 at the Swanesa, Mass., store, Good reported.
Good reported the ‘mis-priced’ electric toothbrush had been marked ‘DISPLAY’ with the outlet saying Leavitt, ‘either didn’t notice or he was trying to pull a fast one’.
Leavitt tweeted that a store manager named Tori refused to sell him the item for the displayed price, prompting him to naturally call the police.
He then posted that the police said he would need to sue Target and that they would make him a report to take to court. Leavitt had 210,000 followers as of Monday.
Award winning journalist trolling spectacular backfiring:
In one tweet after the viral incident, Leavitt posted he could not afford to go to the dentist in three years (yes kids- welcome to a career in journalism!)
‘So yes I wanted a good toothbrush and was thrilled to see such an amazing prize on an @OralB but @target refused to honor it and now I have to take them to court,’ he posted.
The tweetstorm led to the manager, identified as Tori Perrotti, being referred to on social media as #TargetTori. While several thousand Twitter users liked Leavitt’s initial tweet, others sympathized with Perrotti. Many others soon began to take umbrage with Leavitt, with one social media commentator, Tony Bombardier posting, ‘This is the textbook definition of being an absolutely terrible customer. If you’ve ever worked in retail, you understand.’
This is the textbook definition of being an absolutely terrible customer. If you’ve ever worked in retail, you understand. #TeamTori #TargetTori https://t.co/EOs6GshV7T
— Tony Bombardier (@tonybomb) January 18, 2020
Target worker becomes most loved:
Sympathy for the ‘trolled’ Target employee soon snowballed with a GoFundMe fundraiser for the retail employee raising over $31K as of early Tuesday morning, EST.
‘Harassed this Target employee over an electric toothbrush, and then blasted her on Twitter to his 215k followers,’ the page read. ‘Lets send her on a vacation.’
In one photo, Perrotti who had morphed into Target Tori is seen holding a paper that read: ‘Thank you for your kindness!’
Sympathy for Perrotti snowballed, with social media expressing empathy for retail workers who have had to put up with the ‘let me talk to your manager’ types who throw embarrassing tantrums in the store to save a few bucks. Or of course- attempt massive twitter trolling sessions- only to fall magnificently.
In a released statement, Target spokesperson said the company is ‘grateful for the hard work our team members put in each day to serve our guests in our stores.’
‘We’re working closely with our store team on this and appreciate the messages of support the team has received from guests,’ the spokesperson added.
So, let me get this straight. You’re bothering the police because of an obvious mistake Target made that you want to exploit?Because we all know those tooth brushes don’t sell for .01. Then you went on twitter and blasted the photo of a $15 per hour employee just doing their job?
— Bryan Lee (@FamousBL3) January 17, 2020
How can you be an “award-winning multimedia journalist” and also be illiterate?
Its for the display, not the item. Probably because that display is a spot on the shelf, and has to have a tag on it because of the stores internal system pic.twitter.com/8ThcZK0UXd
— America Guy (@that_guy5531) January 17, 2020
