An 11-year-old girl in the U.K. recently spent thousands of dollars to get lip sync sessions with her favorite TikTok influencer and her parents are not happy about the social media “scam.”
The girl spent about $4,198 in a month through iTunes and her parents had no clue that she was making multiple payments for TikTok, a social media app for sharing short talent videos, Business Insider reported. She was obsessed with a 24-year-old TikTok influencer, who was not named at this time, and made multiple payments to interact with the social media figure on the app.
“We didn’t realize that the card was attached to the account and so didn’t realize she was spending all this money,” the mother, who remained anonymous, told Cambridgeshire Live. “We didn’t get any notification from iTunes or the bank even though she was spending hundreds of pounds a day.”
The mother explained how her daughter racked up thousands in bills due to the TikTok incident, which had reportedly caused her to lose all of her savings.
“It’s wiped out all my money,” she said. “It’s all the money I had, it’s over £3,500 (approximately $4,230) and all my overdraft, and I now have not one penny left for me and my family.”
The girl was purchasing coins on the app so she could lip sync with the TikTok influencer and have private video calls with them. A bill obtained by Cambridgeshire Live shows many transactions, and some are as high as $119.99 each. According to the mother, the daughter was scammed on the social media app, however, the 11-year-old didn’t understand the situation.
The worried mum says her daughter has been talking to a 24-year-old influencer on TikTok and buying ‘coins’ on the app so she can lip sync songs with him https://t.co/YcYZBM7JqL
— Cambridgeshire Live (@Cambslive) September 1, 2019
“I’ve now messaged [the man] from her phone, and said I was her mum,” she explained. “He didn’t believe me, and he didn’t seem to care about the money.”
Even though the mom reportedly contacted her bank and the police, she said “no one can help” her get the money back. She received $152.33 from iTunes, but that still wasn’t enough to cover the amount she lost due to the “scam.”
A TikTok spokesperson shared a statement about the incident with Business Insider, stating that it encourages TikTok users to report “potentially inappropriate behavior” on the social media app.
“We are very sorry to hear about this user’s experience and have opened an internal investigation as part of our regular review process, which will help us further strengthen our internal controls,” said the TikTok spokesperson. “We encourage users to report any potentially inappropriate behavior through our in-app reporting function or by emailing us at feedback@tiktok.com. Parents concerned about the possibility of accidental in-app purchases should ensure that the payment function is disabled.”
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