Woman says Discount Tires employee harassed her through text messages
HOUSTON - A Houston woman says she fears for her safety after taking her car to get serviced at a Discount Tire store.
Stephanie Nguyen says hours after going to the shop on Monday, she began getting text messages from a man claiming to be a manager.
”He described what I was wearing that morning. Sending me heart-eye emojis about how I looked, said that you went to my shop this morning,” she recalled.
She claims the man used an app to text her so he couldn’t be traced.
“He was like, ‘I don’t want to get fired because of this. This is the risk I’m willing to take because how beautiful you are,’” she said describing the text messages.
On Friday, after she says the store and the corporate office has not taken her seriously, she filed a police report.
“This man has my address on file that was in there, my phone number, he knows the exact car, make and model that I’m driving,” Nguyen pointed out. She says she has avoided being at home and blocked the phone number.
Nguyen says the same day she got the texts, she went to the store to speak to a manager. She says he told her the phone number was not in their employee database and to text the man back.
”The manager advised me to continue to text this number so I could possibly meet up with whoever said person on the other line was,” she said.
She didn’t listen but instead tried to get the man to send her a picture of himself and which he did. However, the Discount Tire corporate office advised her it was of a former employee and, after they investigated, they couldn't figure out who texted her. She says she was told the man “covered his tracks too well.”
Nguyen tells FOX 26 she is now pursuing legal action.
”The reason I wanted to is to stand up for women and say, 'No this isn’t okay. You don’t have permission to do this and you can’t just violate my rights and my life without my permission,'" she concluded.
Discount Tire declined an on-camera interview but its corporate office sent FOX 26 a statement:
It reads:
“At Discount Tire, we value the well-being, safety and privacy of all our customers. We are continuing to conduct an investigation into this incident. Should we determine one of our employees sent inappropriate messages to a customer, that employee will be terminated.”