After receiving an extra $20 charge for an “unknown item” while shopping at Walmart, a woman on TikTok has a PSA for all shoppers: “Always check your receipts.”
The woman, named Julia Taylor (@julesakajuliataylor), posted a three-minute video sharing her experience and advice. She says she had heard on TikTok about some people receiving strange additional charges but didn’t think it was real until it happened to her.
In the video, Taylor says she had noticed that her grocery bill seemed unusually high when she paid it. But she had brushed her skepticism aside, chalking up the seemingly higher charge to “inflation or whatever.” But by the time she had gotten to her car to load her groceries, she decided to double-check her receipt, saying something still didn’t feel right.
@julesakajuliataylor ♬ original sound – Julia Taylor
She then found a charge for $19.86 that she didn’t recognize.
“I’m like ‘I’m pretty sure that I didn’t buy something for $20,’” Taylor says in her video. “I always double-check the price on the shelf before I pick up an item, just because I do.”
The TikToker says she scanned her receipt on Fetch, a rewards app that earns users free gift cards and cash back if they snap their grocery, shopping, and restaurant receipts. She says she couldn’t tell from her receipt what the extra $19.86 charge was for, so she used the app to determine that. The app told her it was for a “universal unknown item.”
Still confused, Taylor took her receipt inside and spoke with Walmart customer service, who she says was “very kind, very gracious, very helpful.” She asked them to search for the item in their system to see what it was and determine whether she had gotten something wrong. The customer service workers searched the item number twice but both times it came back as “not available,” Taylor says.
“I’m like ‘I think I’m getting scammed,’” the TikToker says. “I think someone is trying to scam me. Somehow, I don’t know, but I didn’t buy something for $20.”
Taylor adds that the Walmart workers were apologetic and refunded her the mystery charge.
“I was very thankful that they did and thankful that I caught it, but y’all, this is a warning to check your receipts,” Taylor says. “If it was $5, I wouldn’t have noticed, but scammers still get away with stuff like that.”
Viewers said they’ve had similar experiences, specifically at Walmart. Some even claimed Walmart knows about the scams.
“It’s true I was a cashier this happened a lot the only time we realized it was when a customer pointed it out to us,” one viewer commented on Taylor’s video.
“Walmart always do that and they know all about it,” another viewer said.
Other users noted that they always ask for their receipts, and they make sure to check them before they leave the store.
“Check your receipt BEFORE you leave the store,” one user advised.
“‘Do you want your receipt?’ YES!” a second user commented.
A third wrote, “Oldies & parents always been checking receipts before they even leave the store. Used to think they were silly but they knew.”
The Daily Dot reached out to the creator via TikTok comment and to Walmart via the media request form on their website.
