Trump jerseys won’t stop showing up at the home of a Denver-area man. “I did not order these,” says Rick, being interviewed by local NBC affiliate 9News on Wednesday, as a new package shows up stuffed with a Trump jersey.
In mid-July, Rick got a text notification from the U.S. Postal Service that his package from TikTok would soon be delivered. He was confused as he hadn’t ordered anything from TikTok and doesn’t use the site. He opened the package when it arrived and found a jersey inside printed with the cartoon face of Donald Trump floating lazily in a tube down the river.
“Chillin like a felon” the shirt said in garish pink cursive.
The shirts now come to Rick’s house every few days and they’re piling up. They’re coming from across the country, including states such as Texas, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, and Virginia. The shirts are also slightly different. In some Trump is relaxed, in repose, floating down the river with untroubled hands. In others, he’s holding a specific kind of alcoholic beverage up to the audience and the branding is repeated elsewhere on the jersey.
There’s Trump holding Twisted Tea, Trump holding Budweiser, Trump holding Coors, and even Trump holding Michelob Ultra Light. If you’re a fan of Trump and his felonies, you can probably get a jersey of him holding your favorite kind of beer.
Rick was befuddled until one package arrived with a piece of paper that gave him some answers. It was the return instructions for a purchase from TikTok. It looks like people are purchasing the jerseys from a seller on TikTok and then returning them. 9News called the list of people who’d sent packages and confirmed that they were, in fact, trying to return the shirts. The people who spoke to 9News had not gotten their money back. According to Rick, one of the shirts had a mustard stain.
I found a dozen stores selling Trump jerseys on TikTok before I stopped counting. Like Amazon, TikTok makes it easy for people unhappy with their purchase to return stuff. They just take things to the Post Office or UPS, scan a label, and give it to the clerk. Some of the stores on TikTok sold hundreds of jerseys, others just a few. It’s likely that one of them listed Rick’s home address as its own. Hence, the wave of unwanted Trump jerseys on his front porch.
Merch stores selling t-shirts and jerseys are pretty common across the internet. It’s an easy product for a drop shipper to move. They don’t have to hold inventory or even design the art themselves, they just need to get someone else to pay for the shirt and they can print them on demand and send them to a customer.
TikTok did not return Gizmodo’s request for comment.
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