Walmart shopper issues warning about a new money scam at the store: "I’m literally freaking out..."

Technology may have made everything from online payments to shopping via e-commerce sites more convenient, but it has also provided scammers with tools to come up with innovative scams. A recent ploy that they use for stealing user data is by making people scan a code that might give them access to their phones or bank accounts. TikTok user Kissezforyou (@kissezforyou1) recently uncovered one such scam that might have cost her dearly had she not been aware. As per The Daily Dot, the near-nine-minute-long video has more than 700,000 views.

The TikToker was at Walmart shopping for groceries when a woman approached her and started speaking about the brand she worked at. She wanted the TikTok user to scan her badge to sign up for the fake company she was advertising. The user was not in the right headspace for that kind of conversation and scanned the code. She immediately felt wrong about it and spent 10 minutes in Walmart observing the woman who spoke to her.

This woman was on her phone the entire time which is weird considering she was supposedly at work at the time. The TikTok user immediately called her bank but was assured that no suspicious activity was seen in her account. However, a few days later, she got a call from someone posing as a representative of her bank. This representative asked for an access code as someone was trying to send her money from a gaming app.

This set off alarm bells prompting the woman to cakk her bank to speak about the call and it turned out that it was a fake call. The scammer was using technology that could mimic any phone number to deceive people into giving them access to their bank accounts. “I have to basically change everything, order a new card, set up another security measurement, change my email address, all that just because I scanned one thing and she was able to access all of my information,” she said.

While it’s all quite concerning, one must understand that it’s not the only method scammers are using these days to deceive people, Sometimes, they use fake deliveries which was spotted by TikTok user Tammy (@thefoxypineapple) in time. Tammy has always been meticulous about what she orders and when the packages come. So naturally, she was surprised when a FedEx package suddenly turned up at her house. Inside the package, she found a small make-up brush with a QR code attached to it. Someone curious would scan the code to understand what exactly was going on but not Tammy, who immediately understood what was going on. But if it hadn’t been for TikTok, she might have fallen prey to the scammer. “I just got a scam in the mail and if it wasn’t for TikTok, I totally would’ve fallen for it,” she had said.

Such creators are doing citizens a massive service by spreading awareness but even with their help, scams are rampant across the country. Cyber criminals have no hesitation in exploiting someone who might not be very aware about tech, to steal their information and money.

For more such content, follow @kissezforyou1 on TikTok