The Body Shop Fraud!!

Hey all..
I went to The Forum Mall today as my mother likes the Indian Night Jasmine lotion I recently purchased so decided to take her to try out a body lotion from The Body Shop. While we were looking at the lotions the SA came up to us and said that they were having a 50% discount on a selection of products and asked us to have a look at it. I liked the Moroccan Rose butter and since it was in a mini tub (50ml), I found it handy to take while travelling and keeping in my purse. I also picked up the Shea Butter body scrub as I have been meaning to buy one in a long time and since it was on half price discount, I decided to purchase this as well. My mother picked up a White Musk scent from them as she did not find the lotion she was looking for.

When we went to the billing counter, the cashier said that it was 50% off only for members and asked for my mother's TBS card but she had left it at home. We asked him to enter our name and find out from their logs but he said they do not have that kind of a system. My mother felt that there was something fishy going on and told him that we did not want to purchase the products as we were not told by the SA about the members only discount nor was it written anywhere. The cashier then said that he will give us the products on 50% discount from his account and that we should carry our card from next time and also that we shouldn't tell anyone about it. That seemed very fishy but we thought he was joking as he smiled and said it. And since I really wanted them, I convinced my mother to let us buy it. I did not take a picture of the scent as it looked fine and there was no tag covering below the 'new' one.

On our way home my mother and me were debating about whether there was an actual discount as I had gone to TBS just 2 days ago and the SA didn't mention anything of that sort to me. But then I thought the sale must have just started yesterday when they got their limited edition products. So once I was home I went to TBS online store to find out about their 50% members only discount but could not find anything related to it anywhere. I then googled the discount and found out about how TBS has been cheating people by removing the product tags of the expired products and replacing it with new ones that show the expiry date to be much later. The link is HERE. I checked out the Shea Butter scrub but could not find any remaining paper or tag, but just one tag with the price, expiry date etc. But the Moroccan Rose body butter had two tags - one new one that said that the product was manufactured in Sep '11 and expires in May '14 (though the tube picture clearly shows the shelf life of the product is 12 months). I could not see the actual expiry date as the old tag had been almost fully removed. The product smells really old and stale.

The new tag

You can see the old tag when the new one is removed.

Even while we were sampling the lotions, I told my mother that I did not like a particular ones smell and the SA said that its probably because the lotion has expired already and that she would bring a new one. Why would you keep an expired product as the tester?? Knowing how good the brand is, I trusted them and did not even go to check whether the products they gave me were intact or not... until I came home and realized that there were no seals on any of my products. And it looked like it was already half used. And the body butter smelt stale. I am very very very disappointed with TBS as I did not expect them to do something like this. My mother threw away the bill before I checked my products so its of no use going to talk to them about it now :(
I will not be purchasing any more of TBS products and have lost complete trust in them. I am very very very disappointed and angry with them having the guts to cheat their own customers. For all those that purchase from TBS- please check the product expiry date and everything else and do not purchase anything if it looks fishy to you. Do not make the same mistake I did.The cashier must have thought that we would still purchase the products though it was not on discount but since we decided not to, he must have realized that some profit is better than none so he "sweetly" decided to pay half on our behalf. I should have just listened to my mother. *Sigh* atleast we just spent around Rs.1500 :(

Sorry for the really long post, just wanted to share how deceiving even trusted brands can be. I will check the details on all products even more carefully from now on. Even if it is my favorite and I find it trustworthy.