Buyers beware: Don’t fall for the Facebook scammers.
A TikToker has fallen prey to greedy online scammers, losing $2,250 after falling for a faux rental ad — and it nearly wiped out her entire savings.
Stephanie Thacker, who is homeless and has been living with her dog in her car for over a year, took to TikTok to share her horrifying story while crying on camera in a clip with 149,000 views.
“I showed up to this place, it was a listing on Facebook for an apartment, and it said privately rented,” she explained in between sobs. “I’ve been living in my car for over a year trying to save all this money, and I just sent it all to this person at the address.”
She was parked outside the address, saying they “took all my money that I’ve saved for months” and was left with nowhere to go. Thacker even called the police, detailing in a report that multiple transactions of various amounts were sent via Chime to the scammer, who was allegedly using someone’s hacked Facebook account to dupe innocent people.
“I’ve called the police, and they’re on their way, and I don’t even know what to do,” she continued. “I have all of our messages screen-recorded and everything’s screen-shotted but she just blocked me on Facebook.”
In other videos on her account, Thacker shows her invested viewers the Facebook profile that supposedly scammed her, and the various transactions between the two.
Despite disputing the transactions with her bank, she was told it would take 60 days to even begin an investigation, in addition to the one-year estimate she was given by the police. In a later clip with nearly 7 million views, she revealed that the financial services company allegedly found no errors and refused to give her money back — even after other TikTokers called out the bank, Chime, on social media.
“We take these types of things seriously. We’re looking into this and just reached out to you via email,” the official Chime account commented on one of Thacker’s clips, although the bank determined that there was still “no error.”
“You need to definitely switch banks I’m so sorry this happened to you,” one person commented.
“Chime is one of the worst banks they don’t really care bout their customers. I pray for a solution for you,” another wrote.
Commenters were quick to also chide Thacker for sending the money before ever meeting the landlord and signing the lease, while others offered her words of encouragement and advised her to “never trust anyone.”
“Why would you give them money before you meet with them? I’m sorry this happened to you,” one user wrote.
“No way this is real,” a skeptic commented.
“This is so upsetting to hear. Praying you get your money back,” someone else said.
“I understand you were so desperate to have a roof we all do things without thinking right cus we so desperate to get it done fast,” another commented.
