A Denver-area man’s home is receiving a steady stream of Trump jerseys. “I didn’t order this,” Rick said in an interview with local NBC affiliate 9News on Wednesday about a new shipment of Trump jerseys arriving.
In mid-July, Rick got a text notification from the U.S. Postal Service saying a package from TikTok was on its way. He was confused because he hadn’t ordered anything on TikTok and didn’t use the site. When the package arrived, he opened it to find a jersey with Donald Trump’s cartoon face printed on it, placed inside a tube floating down the river.
The shirt said in loud pink cursive: “Lounging like a criminal.”
The shirts now arrive at Rick’s house every few days, stacked high, from all over the country, including states like Texas, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama and Virginia. Each shirt is slightly different — one shows Trump relaxed, hands motionless, floating in the river, another shows him offering a specific type of alcoholic drink to a crowd, and the brand’s logo appears elsewhere on the jersey.
There’s Trump with Twisted Tea, Trump with Budweiser, Trump with Coors, and even Trump with Michelob Ultra Light, so if you’re a fan of Trump and his crimes, chances are you can get a Trump jersey with your favorite type of beer.
Rick was stumped, but then he received a piece of paper in one of his packages that might have given him some answers: instructions for returning items purchased on TikTok. Apparently people were buying jerseys from TikTok sellers and then returning them. 9News called the list of people who were sent packages and confirmed that they were indeed trying to return the shirts. Those who contacted 9News had not received refunds. Rick said one of the shirts had a mustard stain on it.
Before I stopped counting, I found about a dozen stores selling Trump jerseys on TikTok. Like Amazon, TikTok makes it easy for people who aren’t satisfied with their purchase to return it: Just take it to a post office or UPS, scan the label, and hand it to a store clerk. Some TikTok stores have hundreds of jerseys for sale, while others only have a few. Maybe one of them has Rick’s home address listed as its own, which is why there’s a pile of unwanted Trump jerseys at his front door.
Merchandise stores selling t-shirts and jerseys are pretty common on the internet. For drop shippers, this is an easy product to sell. You don’t need to hold any inventory or design the art yourself. You can simply pay someone to make shirts for you, print them on demand, and send them to your customers.
TikTok did not respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
