Retailers Selling Used Underwear?

March 2, 2010

I saw an NBC News piece about retailers reselling used women's underwear. They did a "hidden camera" sting where they bought women's underwear in numerous retailers in the New York City area, removed all of the tags and protective strips and returned them. They were allowed to return the "used" underwear at Victoria Secret, Bloomingdales, Gap, Macys and Nordstroms. They marked the underwear so the items could be later identified. In some cases they stained the underwear with baby oil and the retailer used a deodorizer to remove the smell and placed them back on the sales racks. It was noted that the Nordstroms store even replaced the protective strips in the panties.

Even though retailers will tell you that reselling underwear is against their policies - they still do it. As it turns out there appear to be no state laws prohibiting this, although there may be some local health laws against the practice. In fact, you can find "previously used" women's underwear for sale on eBay. In Japan used women's underwear were sold in vending machines (I think the practice may have been stopped). Can you saw - eeeeeewwwwww!

Curtis Baillie - Security Consulting Strategies, LLC