Loading The "cut-throat" sales environment has been likened by former staff to The Hunger Games books and movies, where young rivals are forced to fight to the death. At Victoria's Secret, sales staff were ranked by their performance in a list circulated publicly to staff each day. Some were told to go home if they arrived at their shift without enough make-up on. Others say they were pressured to harass customers to the point where they chased them out of the store.

The Chadstone store is the first in Australia to stock the global brand’s full lingerie and clothing range. Last year the label's parent company, the Valiram Group, hired more than 100 employees, a combination of full-time and casual workers, staff estimate. People lining up on November 29 when the new Victoria’s Secret store in Chadstone opened last year. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui Ms Bosch, 21, said the arrival of the brand on Australian shores initially "really hit our generation". "The way they framed everything was: 'We want it to be the best company that any worker can work for, it's the best environment. Anything we can do to make it better,' " she said.

Sales staff were told to give customers "Fit Cards", which would list a person's size and name and the sales assistant's name. The cards were then used by register staff to track sales. Workers say the environment was like the Hunger Games, with sales staff pitted against each other. Credit:Joe Armao "A lot of girls were running into customers who already had a Fit Card, taking it away and giving them one with their name on it," Ms Bosch said.

"At the end of every day, there was a huge list with everyone’s names and what they made in order. The people at the bottom, it was quite obvious, we all knew they were going to fire people." The list was circulated to all employees through a WhatsApp group, which listed everyone's sales and congratulated the top three performers. Ms Bosch said the sales tactics made the environment "really toxic, so stressful". Models during the Victoria's Secret 2018 Fashion Show. The brand opened its Chadstone store to much fanfare last November. Credit:Evan Agostini/Invision/AP "It was like a constant horrible Hunger Games competition."

She was also underpaid by the company and left $3000 out of pocket. "When I queried this, I was told it was an 'accident' and no matter how many times I asked, they just couldn’t seem to fix it," she said. "In one payslip they paid me $13 an hour. They owed me from that and it took four weeks to get that back." She was eventually reimbursed. "It’s really, really bad," Ms Bosch said. In late January Ms Bosch said emails were sent to dozens of permanent casual staff who were told they were fired due to the end of the holiday period.

Staff, however, say they were never told they were Christmas casuals. Another group of staff were slashed in recent days. Ms Bosch estimates 22 of the 35 full-time staff were either fired or had their shifts cut in early February. Brittany McIlroy, who was fired on February 7, described a culture in which staff were left feeling anxious or humiliated if they did not meet "unrealistic" targets. "We were being watched. They would stand around us and watch our performance and criticise us. It made us anxious," the former full-time staffer said.

Sale targets were set unrealistically high, she said, with some targets on a quiet Wednesday set at $6300 per person. "Because we didn't make that, we were criticised for it. What do you expect from us? We can’t drag people off the street," Ms McIlroy said. She also was underpaid, receiving $170 for two weeks of full-time work. She later received the correct amount for her hours after raising it with management. Izabella Bitorsoli, 19, was axed in the most recent round from her job as a full-time sales associate, and said the company did not do its research before launching in Australia. "They didn’t put into perspective how willing Australians are to buy stuff. We always had customers come up to management and say people are so pushy, or too insistent and it gets so annoying," she said.