A “pervert” Tesco store manager named Jerry is at the centre of a viral TikTok scam conning victims into sharing their card details and personal data on the promise of a £750 money-off voucher.
The scam involves a series of TikTok posts made up of images of an individual in the supermarket’s staff uniform, with text saying they have been fired from the company “because I rejected my pervert manager”.
“He made a random excuse & fired me for no reason at all. See you in court Jerry,” the post says.
Because of the lay-off, they are now “telling everything that we are not allowed to tell the public” the posts claim. Among the trade secrets – which include the fact “cameras at Tesco are all fake, they usually just put a black sphere there” – is that users can review products in return for vouchers worth hundreds of pounds.
“They don’t advertise this of course – greedy Tesco,” the post continues. “This could have helped so many people.” Comments underneath each post claim the voucher is legitimate. “Just claimed the Tesco card, you’re a legend girl <3,” one says.
At the Tesco-branded website link shared – TesReviewer.com – users are directed to another – nationalconsumerscenter.co.uk – which requires they take a short survey, before requesting personal information. It asks victims to take up a ‘paid subscription’ and share card details in order to receive the deal.
Nationalconsumerscenter.co.uk has been widely reported as a scam website, and is understood to have also been behind a similar Asda branded scam. The site is run, according to details on the page, by Delaware, US based RewardsFlow, LLC, also named in multiple online reports of scams.
“These social media accounts and posts are fake and have nothing to do with Tesco or our colleagues, redirecting customers to scam websites to steal their money or personal details,” a Tesco spokesman told The Grocer.
“We are investigating this and urge people to remain vigilant to these types of scams on social media and through phishing emails,” they added.
The proliferation of the phishing posts – of which there are several variations, each featuring images of Tesco staff – has not gone unnoticed by other, genuine TikTok users.
“It’s fully all lies,” said TikTokker SpammyChai. “Drives me crazy, I see so many and all the comments believe it.”
The Tesco pervert manager scam comes a month after Sainsbury’s was forced to grapple with coupon fraud at its self-checkout machines, after TikTok accounts shared reusable money-off coupons that were used to reduce basket bills to next to zero.
Dubbed ‘the Sainsbury’s method’, screenshots of specific, genuine coupons were able to be scanned over and over in a single transaction, meaning users pay pennies for their baskets.
“We have seen an increase in fraudulent coupons in our stores and we have processes in place to detect and block them,” a Sainsbury’s spokeswoman said at the time. “We also have in-store detectives monitoring for fraudulent attempts and we are working closely with the police on this issue.”
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