A Walmart shopper posted a viral storytime video saying she was followed around the store. A worker reportedly told her it happens more than you might think.
TikToker Chloe (@iamchloelauren) has reached over 370,000 views and 29,000 likes on her video by Wednesday. Chloe says she was shopping at a Super Walmart in Tampa, FL when she suspected she was being followed.
At the start of her video, Chloe says, “Y’all know that saying that’s like, ‘You never know what to do in a situation until it happens to you?’ Well, storytime.”
Chloe begins explaining how she drives out of her way to go to a specific Walmart that’s a bit further from her house. “It’s always stocked up; the people are nicer,” she says.
But, the evening she made her video, she had a different experience.
Chloe says Walmart was packed full of people when she arrived. She adds that as she made her way up and down the aisles, she noticed a man who seemed to be in every aisle with her.
Chloe says this typically wouldn’t have struck her as “weird,” but once she reached to grab something off a shelf, “I could feel him, like, closely behind me.”
She says she was startled at first and thought, “Are you OK, sir? Why are you so close to me?” but decided to just move away to another section of the store.
She moved from the produce section by the entrance of the store to the dairy section, which she says is “all the way to the back of the store.”
“I realized he was there again,” Chloe says. “I wouldn’t have even maybe paid him any attention had he not been so close to me in one of the aisles,” she adds.
From here, Chloe says she moved away again to the baby section. “He was there too, and he was staring right at me. We made eye contact,” she says.
When the two made eye contact, Chloe says she realized that the man had neither a basket nor a baby, so he seemed to have no reason to be in that section.
“He also didn’t have one item in his hand but was in every aisle that I was in,” she adds. Chloe says the man “hurried and tried to get out his phone real quick” once realizing she saw him.
Chloe emphasizes again that she usually wouldn’t pay attention to something like this because she normally shops with her kids and is “being pulled in different directions.”
“But he was like, right there. Every step that I made, he was right there,” she says.
Chloe says she got a bad feeling and immediately asked for help when she saw a worker turn the corner. “Please, I think I’m being followed,” she reportedly told the worker.
She says the man began to walk further down the aisle in the opposite direction when he noticed she and the worker looking at him. She adds that the worker called security.
The man began walking toward them when security arrived, Chloe says.
“But now he’s put his hood up,” she continues. Chloe says she told the security guard that’s the man who she believes was following her. She adds that she thought, “OK, maybe I was trippin’ because, sir, you’re being real bold” by walking toward them.
Chloe says security “jumped right on it” and confronted the man. “I don’t know what I thought was gonna happen, but I was like, ‘I’m uncomfortable; I’m gonna go,’” she adds.
She says she began to wonder what happened to the man as she made her way to checkout. “I just left. I don’t know what happened; maybe he’s outside waiting for me,” she thought. Chloe says she had a gut feeling and decided to ask an associate to follow her out to her car.
“As I’m telling her that, the security is looking for him,” she says. “Head on a swivel, just looking around—they go out the store.”
Chloe says at that point, she rushed to check out her items and just wanted to leave the store. She says that as she left, she noticed a worker she’d seen on previous shopping trips and asked if he could help her find an associate to walk her to her car.
“He was like, ‘Oh, I can walk you out there. Is that OK?’” Chloe says. “I immediately was like, ‘Yes, please, I would love that.’”
Chloe says she told the worker what happened with the man and asked if similar situations had happened at that particular Walmart location before.
“Yes, three times in the last two months,” he reportedly responded.
“I’m shook. I’m like, ‘three times?’” Chloe says. “‘Y’all need top-flight security.’”
Chloe says the man told her she’s the second person to tell him about being followed this month, so he could “only imagine” who else has stories.
The man then reportedly asked, “By any chance, is he a tall, Black guy wearing black bottoms, and he had on, like, a hoodie?”
“I’m shook,” Chloe says. “I’m like, ‘Yes, how did you know that?’”
She says he then asked her, “Did he have his phone out?”
Chloe says she responded in the affirmative, and the worker told her that the follower had been caught at that Walmart location multiple times before.
@iamchlolauren Please follow your instincts and pay attention to tour surrounsings yall!!!! For reference this was at the walmart on Gunn Hwy in Tampa, FL. #tampatiktok #tampabay #walmart #storytime #humantraffickingawareness #ladies #becareful ♬ original sound – IamChloeLauren
“He was probably taking your picture,” the worker reportedly said.
Chloe says she immediately got chills “because this man needs to be stopped.”
“Maybe his only intention was to be a creep and take pictures,” she adds, “but also, who knows, and who’s about to wait around and find out?”
Before ending her video, Chloe says, “Ladies, this is real.”
“I’m just so glad that everyone in the situation was so eager to help,” she concludes.
A viewer in the comments section said, “This is crazy how common this is here. This happened to me at the Bush & FL location, dude was actually recording me.”
A viewer from Tampa asked, “Was this the Super Walmart or the neighborhood one on Gunn Hwy?” Chloe responded, “Super Walmart, be careful out there.”
In recent Daily Dot headlines, multiple other women reported being followed by strangers while shopping. A Walmart shopper shared how she got away from a man following her with a clipboard. Another woman said she and her child were almost trafficked at Target, and an Instacart shopper said a Del Taco employee followed her to the bathroom.
If you think you’re being followed, police say the first thing you should do is “Trust your gut” and “be aware of what’s going on around you,” according to the Tri-County Times.
Police also suggest that if you feel someone is following you, you should “turn around completely and start walking directly towards the person who is following you. If they turn around, then something is going on.” If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, police say, “Safety is the number one priority.”
“Walk to the front of the store, where the majority of the people are,” they continue. “Walk up to an employee, say ‘I’m being followed.’”
The Daily Dot reached out to Chloe via TikTok direct message and Walmart via media contact form.
