A woman says she spent 37 minutes fighting a Barnes & Noble ban over a book exchange before her husband asked if her daughter was pranking her

Bridgette B recently took to Instagram (grandmakatycat) and TikTok (cozyreader73) to tell viewers she had spent 37 minutes on the phone with Barnes & Noble employees “FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE to not be banned.” As she wrote in the caption, she had “never defended my character so passionately in my entire life.” After plenty of confusion, she revealed to her hundreds of thousands of viewers that the whole thing had been an elaborate prank.

In her video, Bridgette explained that it all started when she accidentally bought a duplicate book. She called the store to ask about exchanging it and did so a few days later. She then received a voicemail from a woman named Jen, who claimed to work at the Barnes & Noble corporate office.

Bridgette played the voicemail at the end of her video. In it, Jen accused her of reading books and then returning them, called it a violation of store conduct, and threatened a total ban. Bridgette said she immediately called the store, where a worker said they had “never heard of this happening.”

Viewers said the caller was a well-known TikTok prankster

The manager redirected her to corporate, where, after a 27-minute call, she said the employee didn’t know of any Jen and didn’t believe Bridgette was banned. Confused, she brought it up to her husband, who immediately asked, “Are you sure your daughter’s not playing a joke on you?”

Bridgette said she immediately FaceTimed her daughter, who couldn’t stop laughing. She ruefully admitted she had been punked and said she was “honestly really sad that I missed the call.”

Many viewers recognized the voice as that of TikToker Kate Smith, who plays a character called Jen from corporate to prank people. One Barnes & Noble employee said they spotted the prank right away, writing, “Never in a million years would anybody there leave a voicemail like that!”

Commenters found the prank both hilarious and stressful. One user said they accidentally buy duplicates all the time and that a call like that would have given them a “heart attack,” while another Barnes & Noble employee jokingly called the prank “evil.”

Chron explains that store owners can generally ban individuals for reasons like suspected shoplifting or disruptive behavior, especially conduct that breaks clearly posted rules or dress codes. The one condition is that the decision cannot be based on bias against a federally protected class.

While a business can set its own rules for entry, it cannot discriminate based on race, color, religion, or national origin. Chron noted that ignoring a formal ban can lead to legal consequences, such as a charge of defiant trespass, though the warnings themselves can be confusing, as one Seattle woman found when an officer told her she’d trespassed without saying where.

In the comments, one TikToker had a question for Bridgette: “Ok so how we getting your daughter back.” Bridgette seemed to like the idea, replying, “Let the plotting begin.”

Attack of the Fanboy was unable to independently verify Bridgette’s daughter’s or Smith’s side of the story, as this account comes solely from Bridgette’s Instagram and TikTok posts.