A woman on TikTok called out another woman who she accidentally sent two months’ rent to on the J.P Morgan Chase QuickPay platform Zelle.
The student at Kennesaw State University, the Marietta campus in metropolitan Atlanta, shared a video on TikTok, saying that the other woman refused to return her money, and the video went viral.
Using the TikTok handle @smarttomatocutie, the young woman said she didn’t even realize she’d made a mistake until she was contacted by her landlord, who asked why she hadn’t paid her rent for the last two months.
“I’ve been paying my bills on the first every single month,” she said in the now-deleted video, according to Daily Dot.
The college student added that she later realized that she sent the Zelle payment to the wrong number instead of her landlord’s by mistake after checking her bank statements, and she contacted her bank. The bank associate reportedly replied that she would “put in a request” for a refund but didn’t seem too confident in the student receiving it.
After learning the name of the individual to whom she’d mistakenly sent the money, she decided to contact her.
“So I decided to text her, call her, everything,” she recalled. “I even sent a request for the money back, which is not a small amount. But she declined it and hasn’t responded to any of my text messages or any of my phone calls.”
The TikToker added that she looked the woman up on social media and her family members.
“So, the sleuth that I am, I went, and you know, Googled her, Googled her name, looked her up on Facebook, looked her up on Instagram, looked her up on TikTok, and yeah, I found her,” she said. “And you know what else I found? I found her sister. I found her brother. I found her mom, and I found her dad. You know what her dad does? Architecture.”
The student decided to call the father’s work number, but nobody answered the call. She added that she did not want to get the woman in trouble but needed to “pay her rent.”
TikTok users responded to the video, and several apparently had an issue with the student contacting the woman on social media and said her contacting the women’s relatives was harassment. However, other users defended the student.
“Your approach to your error sucks,” said one. “Did you offer her anything? She didn’t scam you, Be prepared to not get it back.”
“All y’all commenting it’s her fault what if it was your rent money I bet you wouldn’t just leave it alone girl do all you can to get your money back,” noted one.
“She took your money and didn’t even question it… for TWO months. That’s a lot of money you’re not the villain (sic).”
The TikToker provided an update on Aug. 1 with the caption, “When does the Hero become the Villain?” She noted that she was not harassing the woman and said she only texted her four times and reached out with a phone call.
“There was no response,” she said, adding that she is also a writer who enjoys a “juicy story.” The student also said she was contacted by a private investigator and planned to serve her with some paperwork, which she didn’t like because she didn’t want to be a villain.
“Why not be a little bit of a villain and possibly serve her some papers,” she continued. “It’s kind of a Nancy Drew-Sherlock Holmes moment, which I grew up on.”
The TikToker said that she would be taking the woman to small claims court in an attempt to get her money back. However, on Aug 10, she learned that she was getting her money returned from the woman, whom she only identified as Abby.
“I manifested this… we did it together,” the student said. She also noted that Abby was being harrassed and asked that people stop harassing her while thanking TikTok for their help. She also advised that Abby asked her to take down the first video, to which she agreed.
