A “new” TikTok trend claiming people could get free money from Chase Bank ATMs is nothing more than old-fashioned check fraud, the company says.
The trend involved depositing a check for a high amount and taking out most of the money before the check bounced. On Thursday, a post about the scam on X was viewed over 7.5 million times — and the trend eventually snowballed into lines forming at Chase Banks in New York.
A Chase spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that the bank knows about the situation and has addressed it. Chase has now fixed the error, locked accounts that took advantage of it, and leveled negative balances with the label “DR DUE TO ATM/DEP ERROR.”
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“Regardless of what you see online, depositing a fraudulent check and withdrawing the funds from your account is fraud, plain and simple,” the spokesperson stated.
This run been personal pic.twitter.com/PQY9m39xa0
— Drench (@ionfeellnun) August 30, 2024
Check fraud has increased by 385% since the pandemic.
While TikTok and other social media may have played a negative part in the Chase glitch trend by spreading the word, TikTok has been the site of less fraudulent personal finance trends — like the “pay off my debt” trend, which saw viewers uniting and watching each other’s videos to help each other pay off debt.
“We have to remember that financial stability is usually a long game,” Jake Burgett, the physician assistant student behind the trend, told Entrepreneur in June. “Social media gives the illusion of a quick financial fix, and I am glad I got to put that theory into motion… But remember not to sacrifice more than you are able to along the way.”