Seattle woman goes to Evergreen Goodwill with her Coach bag. Then a security guard allegedly accuses her of stealing it

A Seattle woman named Jennifer said she was accused of stealing her own Coach bag while shopping at an Evergreen Goodwill store in Seattle, Washington. On-screen text in her first TikTok video read, “Pov you got accused of stealing your own coach bag at goodwill Seattle.” She filmed a first-person confrontation with a security guard wearing a black vest that had yellow “SECURITY” lettering on the back.

The woman stood face-to-face with the guard near a sign that said “STOP! Please exit through these doors.” She gestured at him and said, “No, no, you just- you see, I stole this, right?” She then pointed the camera down at a blue and white patterned Coach bag sitting in a blue shopping cart beside him and asked, “Do you think I can really steal this? Think about it, right?” The guard remained silent and looked at her with a neutral expression.

The video cut to a checkout counter where a cashier in a yellow safety vest, blue shirt, and black face mask handled the Coach bag. The woman filming gestured toward the bag and continued, “Let him go and look at the cameras.”

Store manager joins the exchange and the woman calls police

She later said in the video, “That’s why he told me. Unbelievable. Yes, sir, he’s selling the jacket, my headphones, everything out there. Those are mine.” On-screen text stated, “They lost my own stuff by putting them back to the bins for them to tell me just grab something here for free to replace it.” 

In a follow-up TikTok video posted with the caption “@Evergreen Goodwill this is how you treat your customers,” the woman again held the Coach bag on the checkout counter. A Goodwill employee in a yellow safety vest asked her to open it.

She said, “Show here, open the bag. Yeah, just open it. So yeah, go look and tell me if I stole this. No, go look and tell me if I stole this one.” The security guard pointed at the bag and asked, “Your bag?” She replied, “This is mine. He’s telling me I just stole this bag. No, no, you just accused me of stealing this.”

The security guard told her, “Hey, I’m the manager here.” She responded, “Yeah, I know you’re the-” He continued, “Okay, I can kick you out. You cannot buy anything, okay?” On-screen text in the video read, “The manager told them to kick me out, put back everything that I was supposed to grab at the bins Including some of my own stuff that I never found.” Another line of text stated, “The manager say that he don’t play with his people! Pathetic.”

The woman said, “Okay, but it’s okay to actually accuse me of stealing?” She pointed out items in a blue cart and stated, “Some of my stuff are there. Some of her stuff are there. Actually, top 5, cuz I really like it, you know. Oh my God, what else we have in there? That’s mine. The jacket, my headphones, everything out there, those are mine.”

A screenshot appeared showing her holding the same Coach bag with text that read, “Same bag that I just bought online (I even did a bag haul a week ago).” Goodwill has seen similar bag disputes before, including a stranger calling dibs on someone’s own purse.

She shared a screenshot of an iPhone emergency call screen showing a 911 call placed at 2:44 PM that lasted 11 minutes. On-screen text read, “They never showed up.” In a comment reply, she claimed that she did not get her things back. In a later update TikTok video, she wrote in the caption, “They finally reached out to me. thanks to the internet.”

Viewers left comments on the videos. One commenter advised against handing over belongings in similar situations and wrote, “Never let them take your stuff. Hold it with all your willpower and call the police. Wait till the police get there and see all of your stuff inside of your bag. That is your personal stuff.”

Another commenter suggested showing previous videos or photos of the bag and wrote, “you shouldve showed them ur tiktok vids or pics of u using the bag before u came keep calmm.” A different commenter said they no longer donate items to second-hand shops because of pricing and wrote, “i stopped giving everything to the second handshops since they over price their items. I put it up as give aways on Facebook Marketplace instead.”