Lately, it seems like there are fewer and fewer reasons to carry around a wallet.
While it’s always convenient to carry around an ID and a little cash, an increasing number of people are relying on their phones for just about everything. The TSA will now let passengers use digital IDs from some states, and according to Apple, over 85% of retailers accept the company’s tap-to-pay service, called Apple Pay.
But no matter how popular these services have become, that does not mean that they work everywhere. Now, a user on TikTok says that a customer tried to use this fact to attempt to run a scam on her restaurant.
What Happened At This Restaurant?
In a video with over 465,000 views, TikTok user @arock_starr, who is a manager at an upscale restaurant, claims that a woman walked into her restaurant saying that it was her birthday and that she planned to have a group of four.
While this would usually be an occasion to celebrate, the TikToker claims that something immediately seemed off about the woman. This suspicion continued when the woman’s friends arrived.
“Two of her friends walk in, and I’m like, ‘Hey, are you looking for so and so?’ And they’re like, ‘Uh…’ Like, they seem confused,” the TikToker recalls. “‘Birthday girl? Like, ‘She’s over here if you want me to show you the table.’”
The friends apparently refused to sit with the woman, deciding to seat themselves at the bar.
“Weird,” the TikToker declares. “It’s giving ‘girls’ trip gone wrong.’”
Eventually, it came time to pay. While one of the pairs in the friend group paid and left, the original woman and another woman said they could only pay with Apple Pay—a service the restaurant did not accept. From here, things got weird.
An Apple Pay Debacle
The TikToker says that she did not want to immediately write off the woman. Instead, she decided to try to find ways to accommodate the woman’s payment method.
It was at this point that she realized something was amiss with the woman’s Apple Pay.
“As she’s pulling it up, it doesn’t look like Apple Pay,” the TikToker explains. “It has, like, an icon of a credit card. The thing that she’s pulling up, it looks like a picture of a PDF file.”
Confused, the TikToker asked the woman if she could tap to pay. The woman insisted she could not and that the details had to be entered manually. When the TikToker insisted this was not possible, the woman proceeded to “start typing it in herself.” The card was immediately declined.
“She does it again, starts typing it, gets declined again, and it gets really weird,” the TikToker states.
From here, the woman claimed she just needed to unlock her card, and that her ID was in her car. The TikToker knew this wasn’t true, as the ID was attached to her phone and visible.
Simply trying to sort out a payment, she asked to scan the woman’s visible ID. The woman affirmed that this was OK, but the woman with whom she was dining responded by seemingly attempting to distract the waitstaff.
There’s A Kerfuffle
The distraction attempt didn’t work. From there, the woman seemingly pivoted strategy, taking issue with the fact that the TikToker scanned her ID using her phone.
“She’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. What did you just do?” the TikToker recounts. “I’m like, ‘I just took a photo of your ID. Like I said, I need to scan your ID.’ ‘Oh, well, show me. Show me. What did you just do? … This is shady.’ Blah blah, blah, blah, blah.”
“I’m like, ‘I told you that I needed a copy of your ID,’” the TikToker continues. “’Well, you didn’t make a copy of it. You took a photo of it in your personal phone.’”
Not wanting to escalate matters, the TikToker said she would delete the copy of the ID—as long as the woman would accompany her to make a scanned copy of it. The TikToker said she would not run the payment unless she had a copy of the ID.
While the woman initially seemed compliant, she then became “aggressive.” She demanded that the payment be run on the card, then, when that was not possible, began getting angry at other staff members. Finally, she threatened to leave without paying.
“So I told her that I was gonna call the police, and she doubled down and threatened to call the police on me,” the TikToker says in a follow-up. “I was like, ‘OK, girl, whatever. Either way, one of us is gonna have to call and sort this out, because this is just nuts.’”
But when the TikToker began calling the police, the story took an unexpected turn.
“When she hears me talking to the police, all of a sudden, she takes a quick turn, goes back over to the bar, takes out this giant roll of money… Not even counting through it, just takes out a few hundreds and throws it down on the table,” the TikToker states. “The same person who had no other form of payment.”
What Was The Scam Here?
Digital wallet fraud, where a scammer tricks you into adding your card to their digital wallet, is a real problem. That said, it does not appear to be what happened here.
Given the TikToker’s description of events—and her later claims that her ID did not match the name she provided when asking to be seated, and that the ID did not look like her—another option is more likely here. Simply put, this is probably credit card fraud.
Credit card fraud is when someone attempts to make a purchase using stolen credit card information. This is incredibly common; stolen credit card details can be purchased for as low as $10. This widespread availability may be why over 60% of Americans say they’ve been the victim of credit card fraud.
With stolen card information, a skilled scammer can invent a story in order to be able to use the card, even without all of the original cardholder’s details. They can create a fake ID, print fake credit cards with the stolen information—or, if they’re feeling a bit lazy, just take a screenshot of the stolen card and claim it’s a broken Apple Pay payment.
Can You Use Apple Pay Without Tap-To-Pay?
Generally speaking, Apple Pay requires wireless tap-to-pay acceptance to work. If a business accepts tap-to-pay, chances are high that they will also accept Apple Pay.
However, in cases where one only has Apple Pay and the business does not accept any wireless payments, there’s a chance you can still use your Apple Wallet to complete the payment.
In the Wallet, a user can add their card details. If you pull up Apple Pay, tap the card, then look at the top, there is an icon resembling a credit card with numbers. By tapping that, one can access their card information.
From there, this can be entered manually into some businesses’ credit card processors. Alternatively, if one uses Apple Cash, their virtual card number can be accessed the same way.
That said, a business may not want to process cards in this way, or they may need to confirm one’s ID before deciding to run the card.
Commenters Say You Can’t Rely On Apple Pay
In the comments section, users said that there were many details of the story that were suspect. To start, some questioned the woman’s alleged reliance on Apple Pay.
“Going around depending on Apple Pay is wild in general,” a user wrote.
“As someone who works in a restaurant, it amazes me how many people will sit down and eat and drink and then wait til the very end to ask if we take apple pay,” another said.
Others speculated as to why she acted in this manner.
“She wanted you to type it in because she was going to file a chargeback,” said a commenter. “The merchant can see if it was swiped or not, and if it wasn’t, it’s a much better chance she gets her money back.”
“She wasn’t planning to pay at all lol,” declared a further TikToker.
@arock_starr There were a lot of flags and I hate judging a book by its cover. 😓 storytime miami
BroBible reached out to @arock_starr via TikTok direct message and comment.