Mum accidentally donates all of daughter's favourite clothes without permission before mission to get them back

A 19-year-old woman from Pennsylvania found what actually happens when your parents donate your clothes to the charity shop.

It's a common threat that parents might make to make their kids behave - if you don't get your act together I'm donating your favourite clothes.

But for Abby, this ended up becoming a reality, albeit as an accident rather than on purpose.

Speaking to PEOPLE about the ordeal, she said: “I noticed that my winter formal dress from the previous year was sitting on the back of the couch, so I asked my mom why it was there.

“I thought maybe she had sold it online and was getting it ready for the person who bought it. Instead, she said, ‘You were getting rid of it.’ I was completely confused and asked what she meant."

The 19-year-old went viral on TikTok with a video showing her and her mum heading to the charity shop to recoup the many clothes which had accidentally ended up there, captioning the clip: “Spent my Wednesday afternoon searching for the bin of clothes my mom donated that were all my winter clothes that weren’t for donation.”

Her mom had taken the clothes to Goodwill (Getty Stock)

The clip has racked up some 4.9 million views and half a million likes on social media, and sees her going through a rack, saying 'this is mine, this is mine, this is mine', again and again.

Abby recalled the moment that she realised the bin her mum was referring to in their earlier conversation had been 'full of my winter clothes that were supposed to be stored in the attic', recalling that she had told her mum that hadn't been for the charity shop.

The seeds for the incident were sown about a week earlier when Abby was clearing out her closet to put her winter clothes away and get her summer clothes ready.

While doing this, she had sorted through to see if there were any clothes she didn't want anymore which could go to the charity shop, placing these ones in bin bags, while the clothes she wanted to keep were in other bags, but was interrupted by work.

Abby said that the bag where her clothes to keep were kept had 'ripped', resulting in her mum mistaking it for another donation bag.

She had to comb through the racks to retrieve her clothes (Getty Stock)

“Since everything was sitting together, she thought the ripped storage bag was also meant for Goodwill and got sick of seeing them in the hallway, so she just took them herself," said Abby.

Luckily, the Goodwill store was understanding and allowed Abby to reclaim the clothes that she had mistakenly sent them without spending any money after calling them to tell them about the mistake.

“The employee I spoke with had told me that if I found my items, they would let me take them back,” she said.

Then, she and her mum went along to sort through the racks and reclaim her clothes, and while she couldn't find every single thing, she managed to get back a good amount.

“I was definitely frustrated, but we were also able to laugh about how crazy the situation was, “ Abby said. “It was an honest mistake, and we worked together to find as many of my clothes as we could.”

She added: "Thankfully, Goodwill let us take everything we found back without paying for it again.”