In country like "India" - YES. I have faced it myself. Many times. It doesn't matter you are rich or poor, but yes appearance is the main deciding criteria today.
Here are some of the incidents I came across -
Incident 1 -
At Chennai, once I entered into a mall with my mom & bro for shopping.Guess which mall! Its the express Avenue mall. Well, we are basically rich but don't do show off much, so we dress the simplest way possible. I was dressed with normal formal pants and checked shirt, my bro wore a simple Tee and jean and my mom a simple Cotton sari(free loose style dressing for summers).
And we were just walking around inside the mall looking for different products. So, my mom just tried to enter a ladies accessories shop in the mall which already had full of very pretty young girls inside with jeans, Tees, leggings, jeggings, etc(me & my bro decided to stay out as it was ladies dominated shop!).
And suddenly the security guy standing outside that shop, stopped my mom and said "Lady, the items inside are very expensive, so better don't enter". Me and my bro got very angry with this and forcefully entered into shop, demanded for the manager and did a heated argument with them "all in English" and immediately that manager apologized and gave heavy dose to that security man. But my mom, did not purchase anything from there and never even entered that shop later ever.!
Incident 2 -
Me and my friend, decided to go to a shop at a shopping complex in Chennai(T Nagar) to just survey about a product. That day I only had 200 rupees in my pocket and my friend who is not that wealthy as me had no money at all. We Spent Rs.100 for petrol and 50 for tender coconut. So we entered the shop with just Rs.50. But we were dressed like Branded tees, new Jean, Adidas Flipflops and Ray-ban Sunglasses.
And we were welcomed into that shop like VIPs. They made us sit and provided us with cool butter milk.! Full respect.
Incident 3 -
Me and my bro were about about to enter the same EA mall again in Chennai. So he was trying to park the car at the outer parking lot of mall and I was helping him, but accidentally the rear wheel of the car ran over my left foot. Blood was bleeding out of my foot and even swelling started. So my brother, helped me to get to the corridor of the mall, made me sit there and ran to get some first aid from a medical shop near by.
And a Security guy came running to me and started yelling at me, saying -
Security - Mr. You should not sit here.
Me - Can't you see am injured, my brother has gone to get some first aid and we will be leaving to hospital as soon as he arrives.
Security - What ever, I don't care, you should not sit here, leave now or else.
Me - What the F? Or else what? Call your damn Mall In-charge right now, I need to talk to him. Or else, you would face the worst of worst consequences.(because I knew people from Police & HRC).
Security - Ok Ok(he starred at me and left).
Then my bro arrived with some First aid, extra cotton rolls and ice packs and then we drove to nearby hospital. I actually had a nerve rupture and Minor Fracture.
The worst Happens at Hotels. They Give Fullest Respect to Young new Couple and they are offer them with Tables and Chair Immediately but no Respect to Senior Citizens! I even faced many other such incidents related to Appearance at other places like Offices, Functions, College events, etc.
So with these incidents one can clearly see how these mall runners treat people with respect to appearances and how rude the security people are at these places.
Respect is Given to Sun Glasses, but no Respect to heart.
