Mom Warns Why You Should Never Help Someone Pick up a “Dropped Debit Card” From Under Their Car

"Kidnapped survivor here, Great job mama, good observation & instincts u have"

Mustafa Gatollari - Author
By

Published March 6 2024, 6:06 p.m. ET

Dropped Debit Card Kidnapping Scam
Source: TikTok | @officialjujube

"My daughter almost got kidnapped today," a TikToker named Julie (@officaljujube) tearfully exclaims into the camera as she talks to her viewers in a clip that's garnered over 12.9 million views on the popular video-sharing application.

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Here's what went down: Julie says that she was going out shopping with her daughter at Ross Dress for Less and noticed, right from the get-go, that the "parking lot was pretty full" and that there were cars all packed close to each other throughout the lot and that there was a "black van parked right next to us."

She said that she even joked with her daughter that the vehicle looked like a "creeper van" and they weren't talking about the bad guys from Minecraft.

Julie then goes on to say that she's been at Ross Dress for Less for "about 30-40 minutes" before ultimately heading on out to the parking lot, where the "black van" was still parked.

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Source: TikTok | @officialjujube

But Julie says that she and her daughter didn't decide to go home just yet, but instead wanted to go to "another little store" right next door to the popular clothing retailer, but they only stayed inside of it for about "15 minutes tops."

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Once they left that store, however, "the black van was gone, but there's another car right in front of my vehicle," she states, while clocking an older woman with a dark complexion standing outside of her vehicle with salt and pepper hair.

This mystery woman, Julie says, was standing close enough to their vehicle that it prompted a greeting from her and her daughter who said, "hi" and then started to get into her whip.

It wasn't until Julie was in the car that the woman decided to ask her daughter, Zoey, for some assistance in getting her debit card that fell on the ground "under her car" and she asked for some assistance in retrieving it.

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dropped debit card kidnapping scam
Source: TikTok | @officialjujube

Zoe, deciding to be a good samaritan, said no problem and that she would help the woman out. Julie said that her "mom instincts kicked in" at that point because she "had heard" of things like that happening in the past and that she would assist the woman in getting the debit card.

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"You don't ignore your gut instinct," she said, and it didn't seem like Zoe was picking up what her mother was putting down, because she kept saying that she could pick up the debit card herself.

Julie took a strong stance and instructed her kid to get in the car and "lock the door" which she did, and walked up to the woman's vehicle to look underneath the car to see where the debit card was — but there was nothing underneath the vehicle.

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dropped debit card kidnapping scam
Source: TikTok | @officialjujube

The TikToker says the woman tried waving her off saying, "no, no," as she picked up her phone to make a call and started speaking in another language that Julie couldn't recognize. It was around the time the mom was left wondering just what the heck was going on, as this mystery woman spoke another language into the phone, that the black van rolled up again, idling right behind the salt-and-pepper-haired woman's vehicle.

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"The woman gets in her car...and takes off...there's no debit card," Julie says.

Freaked out over the incident and thinking that something was up, the TikToker phoned the police to make an incident report, and the authorities informed her that this was not "the first time" someone phoned them up relaying a similar type of weird situation.

Apparently, three of these types of incidents happened in the same weekend, and the TikToker says she wasn't entirely sure as to what these folks were planning: is it a "sex trafficking" ring? Or some sort of kidnapping scam they've got going on?

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dropped debit card kidnapping scam
Source: TikTok | @officialjujube

While the intentions of these people weren't clear, what did seem clear to Julie was the fact the individuals in that parking lot were all working with one another.

She added that while she's heard of things like this occurring in the past, she didn't "understand the seriousness of it," until she came face to face with it herself.

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"There was license plate on the back of the car, or the van, please, just please I'm begging y'all, please just be very cautious of your surroundings," she said towards the end of the video, urging folks to take care of themselves while explaining how she couldn't report the vehicles because they weren't properly tagged.

dropped debit card kidnapping scam
Source: TikTok | @officialjujube
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While they weren't able to get the vehicles' plates recorded, she did say that the cops are working with the stores to see if they could take a look at the security cameras to try and clock out who these purported creepazoids are.

Scarily enough, this isn't the first time parking lots and potential kidnapping / human trafficking schemes have gone viral.

A woman was reportedly poisoned with a napkin in an "attempted kidnapping," and a TJ Maxx shopper had their car blocked with a shopping cart in a similar blocking style scheme — and then there was the "marco polo" scam rumored human traffickers were using to try and stalk potential kidnapping victims.

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