Social media influence can often blur the lines between virality versus reality.
As of 2023, 43% of TikTok users in the U.S. regularly get their news from the social media platform, and often, some simply take these small pieces of information as fact without doing further research.
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TikTok is currently one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. Its growth is mainly due to people between the ages of 18 and 29, who account for 62% of the user base.
With such an impressionable, high-viewership audience, it was only a matter of time before another viral video promoting criminal acts surfaced.
NEW YORK, NY – January 14, 2011 in New York City. JPMorgan Chase. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Virality versus reality
It’s not a ‘glitch.’ It’s a fraud scheme. “Plain and simple.”
These are the words Chase Bank used in response to the latest viral TikTok.
Content creators on TikTok, the short-form video platform, went viral once again after starting a get-rich-quick trend for getting ‘free’ money.
Users took to TikTok to tell their viewers of an apparent ‘glitch’ in the Chase systems. This glitch supposedly allowed cardholders who deposited false checks in the bank’s ATMs to withdraw large lump sums of ‘free’ money before the check bounced.
These TikTok users claimed it was a way to cheat the bank’s system, but in reality, they were committing bank fraud, which is considered a federal crime in the U.S.
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The worst part, for them, is that these users were posting the crime on a viral video platform for everyone to see while confessing to their fraudulent actions.
This is all the necessary evidence needed to land anyone in prison for the same criminal offense.
Chase Bank fires back fast
TikTok users thought they had outsmarted a well-established bank, but Chase (JPM) was quick to react and take action against the fraudsters.
“We are aware of the incident, and it has been addressed,” said Chase in a statement to NBC News.
Although users might have thought of this ‘glitch’ as an innovative hack, making fake check deposits is a tale as old as time in the fraud scheme books, and banks have been aware of it for years.
“Regardless of what you see online, depositing a fraudulent check and withdrawing the funds from your account is fraud, plain and simple,” said Chase in the same statement.
When a check with large amounts of money is deposited, banks tend to place it on hold while it is reviewed. In the meantime, customers can withdraw the cash from the ATM before the check is cleared or bounced.
However, getting away with scamming a national bank is not that simple and takes a bit more effort than watching a seconds-long video.
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Experienced scammers often commit this crime by using other people’s accounts, but in this case, the TikTok users were only scamming themselves out of money.
Participants in the trend did not get to enjoy the stolen money for as long as they had hoped for, as the flawed plan quickly began to crumble.
The next morning, these viral-trend participants were shocked to wake up to negative funds in their bank accounts.
Chase immediately tracked down the bank fraudsters and charged them for the money they had stolen out of their own bank accounts.
In response, many users once again took to social media platforms, including TikTok and X (TWTR) , to post about huge bank charges placed on their accounts amounting to the money they had withdrawn.
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