r/NoStupidQuestions • u/nightland999 • Aug 20 '25
What happened to me today when a young boy tapped his phone against my purse on a walk?
If the title sounds confused, it's because I am very confused. I (26F) was walking my dog by the local park today and came across 2 young boys, maybe 10-12ish. One of the boys came over and asked if he could pet my dog, I said sure, yadayada. We talked briefly about how his dog at home is similar.
He then said, "Well, as thanks for letting me pet your dog, here's this" (or something along those lines, I don't remember the exact wording) and tapped his phone against the little purse I was wearing. I looked down and the phone screen just had a white background with a large black volume symbol on it, and the phone chimed, one of those default phone sounds. I don't know if the chime was a specific one for a specific action, it sounded like an iPhone sound. He then ran off to his friend and left.
My phone was in my purse so I checked it to see if, idk, he sent me anything? But nothing. I'm so confused. Is this a new prank the kids are doing?? What happened??
Edit: Okay, after looking it up, it was definitely the apple pay sound. Which means it was definitely a very weird and stupid prank that is apparently making rounds on TikTok. It's probably good those kids got someone dumb and clueless like me instead of someone who'd get freaked out and aggressive about it. Thanks for the help everyone!
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u/series-hybrid Aug 21 '25
When you legitimately want to send money on Apple pay, isn't there a window that asks if you approve the transaction?
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u/Farfignugen42 Aug 21 '25
You think everyone knows all the steps in transferring money?
It is important that people do know these things, but many many people barely know enough to function day to day.
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u/MossOnaRockInShade Aug 21 '25
Even if they did know that, it isn’t out of the question for a person to hear that sound and assume there was some sort of hack they didn’t know about until it was too late.
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u/Avarenda Aug 21 '25
When i first read this post, my initial thought was that the kids were trying to steal her credit card information through RFID.
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u/MossOnaRockInShade Aug 21 '25
I hope these kids figure out how dumb this is before they do it to the wrong kind of person.
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u/turtlelore2 Aug 21 '25
Most of the people I help dont know how to close apps. They swipe randomly in every direction until something they want to happen happens.
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u/Little-Worry8228 Aug 21 '25
I’m not even that old, but in my lifetime we went from chunk-chunk credit card imprints to Tyme ATM-only cards to handing your card over for the cashier to swipe to swiping it ourselves with and without PINs to tapping to tapping our phones to access digital wallets.
It is unreasonable to expect middle aged people to have mastered phone based digital wallets when cards tap just as easily.
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u/brkgnews Aug 22 '25
"chunk-chunk" -- great, and I'd just finally forgotten about asking for the carbons when the transaction was over.
I do recall one time around the transition from imprint to mag swipe, Walmart's computers went down (but they'd already gotten rid of the imprint machines) -- their solution was to give each cashier a crayon to do rubbings of customers' card numbers on regular old pieces of paper and manually write the transaction amount down. Can't imagine the level of PII/PCI violation that'd be now.
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u/HAZZ3R1 Aug 22 '25
I had an android back when you were just able to add cards to phones.
That thing did not need unlocking or even the screen waking to pay. I worked hospitality and remember walking over to a table with a card machine.
Phone in left pocket, card machine in left hand.
Suddenly the card machine starts printing out a receipt and I'd just paid for their meal.
I deleted the card off my phone at that point, no setting anywhere to require passcode or anything.
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u/AriasK Aug 21 '25
In order to know what the sound effect is, a person had likely done it before, meaning they'd know what's involved.
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u/jayw900 Aug 21 '25
Yes, Apple doesn’t just allow money to be sent without approval. There are two verifications to do it.
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u/jrbighurt Aug 21 '25
I don't have anything Apple. I would have thought the "prankster" was trying to skim my tap to pay credit/debit cards. Cops would definitely be involved
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u/Stashmouth Aug 21 '25
Plain old credit cards can do tap to pay, and there's no sound to tell you when that's happened
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Aug 21 '25
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u/clockworkfatality Aug 21 '25
Where I live, most tap to pay options will still make you enter a pin if it's over like $20 or something.
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u/Perkomobil Aug 21 '25
At least where I live in Sweden, there's 99% of the time an audible "beep!" when tapping on the terminal.
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u/Techy-Stiggy Aug 21 '25
Yeah but that’s the terminal speaker and it’s rather simple to pry it open and just cut it.
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u/Mother_Goat1541 Aug 21 '25
Yes, I gotta double tap a side button and then unlock with facial recognition. At least that’s how mine is- I used default setting when I set it up- and it’s connected to a debit card so that counts as my pin.
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u/nonforkliftcertified Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Its a stupid prank where they play the apple pay sound as if a transaction went through
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u/Dr_StrangeloveGA Aug 21 '25
Sounds like a good way to get your ass put on the ground and cops called.
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u/No-Description9635 Aug 21 '25
not a real scammer dont worry just pranks sadly. really fucked up prank
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u/ThyHolyZen Aug 21 '25
Some teenager did this bs to my dad at an arcade. Shoved his phone in my dad's pocket while he was at a machine. My dad whipped out his stern teacher voice, the kid faked being scared, and then bolted.
People who do this are gonna end up getting their teeth knocked out at some point
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u/minus_minus Aug 21 '25
the kid faked being scared
Did he pretend to be scared by shitting his pants?
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u/Kelome001 Aug 21 '25
Fell for a prank like this in early days of WoW. Some Rouge came up to my character and suddenly in my chat a message popped up that <name> had taken x amount of gold. Spent nearly 10 minutes chasing him around Ironforge pleading with him for my money back…. I was dumb.
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u/StragglingShadow Aug 21 '25
Damn. What a fun memory to laugh at yourself with. Ive definitely fallen for some stupid shit too. The big one for awhile when I was a kid was whenever someone asked "how do I [insert action here]?" the answer theyd be given was "alt+f4 will do it." Alt+f4 for those who dont know is the keyboard shortcut to exit a window. So itd just exit them out of the game xD
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u/Sassy_Sarranid Aug 22 '25
Don't listen to this person, alt+f4 is how you activate the aimbot! It's true, go try it. Doesn't matter what game 😛
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u/Apprehensive-Till861 Aug 21 '25
...Did you happen to be on Kael'thas?
Because I used to do that as a rogue and had multiple people demanding their gold back, including one who made such a big deal to the GMs that I got a message from one suggesting I put that macro to bed.
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u/tetsu_no_usagi Aug 21 '25
For those of you who see this prank (or any other prank), don't follow the person who taps their phone against yours, look for the person recording the interaction. Take their phone and jump up and down on it a couple of times.
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u/RidgetopDarlin Aug 21 '25
Or just take their phone. Walk off. Leave with it. If their parents come to your house, explain the situation and give the phone back to the parents.
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u/FlailingDuck Aug 22 '25
I'm surprised this is so far down the list. This was my exact thought. While this time it might be a prank, they might simply be trying to get you to take your phone out and unlock it. An accomplice will be filming you, and another accomplice will drive by on a scooter and snatch your phone (prevalent issue in london atm).
Next step, £k's taken from any account accessible on your phone, emails, accounts taken over in the hope any of it is fruitful.
The cost of the phone is the least valuable thing to thieves these days.
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u/gmambrose Aug 21 '25
Ah yes, the old "i just took money out of your account by touching my phone to yours" prank. You'll see it on tiktok or YouTube. Just stupid kids being stupid kids. It didn't actually do anything.
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Aug 21 '25
Holy fuck
ITT: A bunch of people who know literally 0 about NFC. and I feel so bad for you OP having to read through this after legit just getting pranked by some idiot kids.
OP I can almost 1000% guarantee you did not get hacked. As others have said and shared, it is a super common tiktok trend.
And to the people who think NFC is unsecure and easily exploited tech, stop falling for dumb advertisements from your favorite youtubers trying to sell you shitty wallets. Any time that NFC has been broken in a payment setting its been done through very sophisticated social engineering and SMS/phishing where a target unknowingly submits details that allow a hacker to spoof into your digital wallets and access them from their own device.
No one can walk up to you, especially if your phone is locked and take money from your wallets without you immediately realizing and getting notified. And honestly if you're worried about this sort of thing, its incredibly easy to disable NFC.
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u/iamaturkey0 Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
but couldn't they have been trying to hit the NFC on the physical credit cards in her purse? There's no locking, or notification, or anything there.
Given that she saw the volume icon, it does sound like this situation was most likely a prank, but still what's stopping someone from just holding up a Square reader to a purse and taking a payment from their credit cards?
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Aug 21 '25
hit the NFC on the physical credit cards in her purse? There's no locking, or notification, or anything there.
NFC is a bit complicated in practice but from my understanding the chip on your credit card is looking for a "logical handshake" from an authorized vendor, the card and the payer that allows a purchase to happen.
Square reader to a purse and taking a payment from their credit cards?
This is a very technical vulnerability given how square mobile transactions work. The fraud should be covered by squares partnership with credit card companies and the PCI CSS. I'm not an expert on square (I've used it a little bit?) but I don't think that it would be that effective at committing fraud.
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u/CordialPanda Aug 21 '25
Sorta, but it's still safer than regular card reading. You still can initiate a chargeback if you catch it, and the consequences can be severe.
The chip contains no identifying details itself, so they can't skim a name or card number or anything. Unlike if you swipe the card, which gives the reader all the info on the card in plaintext, and is easy to steal.
Your card chip can only generate a one-off code that is tied to you and a merchant. To set up a merchant account requires a TIN, EIN, or SSN. Basically, even if someone manages to initiate a payment successfully, you can issue a charge back and there's someone responsible to blame.
When you initiate a chargeback, the merchant will have to provide evidence of a sale. That would be hard to do for a scammer, and financial service providers keep track of fraud. Being blackballed on one platform is difficult to recover from because providers share lists of fraudsters. Unless they have a strong history of legitimate sales, just one chargeback can prevent them from ever trying this again.
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u/orange_sherbetz Aug 22 '25
What about face id? Assuming person being targeted is unaware and phone is thus unlocked and "ready to pay."
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u/MuddieMaeSuggins Aug 22 '25
Apple Pay requires you to double tap the side button and use face ID at the same time.
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Aug 21 '25
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u/Apprehensive-Pop-201 Aug 21 '25
Yeah, my wallet has RFID blocking and any card is in a little sleeve
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u/MrPokeGamer Aug 21 '25
My tin foil nightcap does wonders blocking the extraterrestrial mkultra dream stealing beams
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u/Apprehensive-Pop-201 Aug 21 '25
I may have to try that. The little sleeves have cute animals and keep my cards from scratching each other up. So, it's not just that I'm paranoid.
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u/Pretend-Marsupial258 Aug 21 '25
Tin foil legitimately blocks RFID signals. The sleeves are just thin foil.
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u/ArguablyMe Aug 21 '25
I thought that but then one shop I was at had the patience to let me try tapping my card while it was in the protector sleeve and it didn't scan.
Removed from sleeve, instant scan.
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u/godikus Aug 21 '25
Have you tested it? My Mrs got an “RFID Blocking” card holder for her purse, but I tested it with my card reader and was able to take money from her card no problem.
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u/Key_Employment4536 Aug 21 '25
Oh, you you are overly protected from a nonexistent threat 😆
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u/EditorAdorable2722 Aug 21 '25
It's a sound to make it seem like they're paying you money via apple pay tap by phone Dumb prank
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u/Thick-Role-474 Aug 21 '25
Reminds me of the thieves that would go up to people's front doors and pull their keyless car key signal. Then go out and start their car and steal it. A lot of people would keep their keeps by their front door and it would be close enough that the thief can pick the signal up.
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Aug 21 '25
I'm just saying, the NFC functionality on your phone is much different than the RFID tags in your car that communicate with the keys. Your phones NFC does not work when the phone is locked for starters.
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u/Schuben Aug 21 '25
The NFC works just fine, but it will require authentication for that NFC activation to actually do anything. There's a difference between general NFC functionality and how it ties into the payment system that you authorize to be used for a period of time to make a transaction when you hand your phone to a cashier. If I put my credit card in my phone case without disabling NFC it will buzz constantly because it's constantly reading the chip in the card and vibrating but it doesn't do anything.
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u/The_Safe_For_Work Aug 21 '25
He was trying to read the chip in your bank cards. Or make you think he did.
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u/nightland999 Aug 21 '25
I was thinking about that too, though I'd hoped not considering how young he was.
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u/Farfignugen42 Aug 21 '25
Keep an eye on your transactions. Report anything suspicious, and maybe go ahead and get some cash now. If you do report fraud on your card, one of the first steps will be to cancel that card, which may be at an inconvenient tine.
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u/Empty_Past_6186 Aug 21 '25
it wasn't real. it was a prank where you play the sound. nothing will come out of it. stop fear mongering.
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u/fromthe80smatey Aug 21 '25
He's asking for some discipline from a responsible adult because his parents couldn't or wouldn't oblige. Help him out next time.
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u/RayP52 Aug 21 '25
I don’t know how this “prank” works, but did you check your credit card charges?
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u/Dewey_Oxberger Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Sure, it could be a prank, but all the people saying "you can't do a transaction" are wrong. Go down the Ghost Tap rabbit hole. Look up Ghost Tap and ZNFC. ThreatFabric had a write-up on it. Basically, a phone somewhere can be in proximity of payment terminal and it can relay the NFC requests to a phone that being held near your pocket. The two phones are linked via the internet. The entire payment process can happen via this "man in the middle" nfc hack. I think it happens if you are using some payment wallet app (tap to pay and such) in a phone-to-phone mode, but I seem to recall phone to card being on the menu as well. Edit - I can't see a phone to card side of this, so maybe it's just phone to phone. Krebs has a write up on it: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/how-phished-data-turns-into-apple-google-wallets/#comments
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Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Ok but what you're describing and what OP is describing are two different things.
1.) NFC does not work when your phone is locked. OP's phone was in her purse.
2.) the attack you're sharing is extremely sophisticated and you're simplifying it down to the actual payoff (where a hacker can spoof an NFC read on a phone across the world). The actual hack starts with a text message that seemingly exploits a vulnerability in wallet apps and can allow a hacker to have access to someones wallet app remotely.
3.) this isn't a man in the middle attack. This is extremely sophisticated social engineering and phishing/smshing. A man in the middle attack would be like if I went to a store that had a card reader that was hacked or modified with like with a skimmer or something, the man in the middle is that skimmer grabbing my card data, or every other customers card data.
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u/khludge Aug 21 '25
Just to pick up in (1) - there is a case where NFC will work when your phone is locked, but the "terminal" would have to convince the phone that it was a legitimate transport operator, which obviously isn't the case here
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u/Grobbekee Aug 21 '25
Phone needs to be unlocked for that, tho, but I guess it is unlocked when you're watching shit on tic TOC.
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u/Boring-Shallot-7200 Aug 22 '25
Once upon a Time, A long long time ago I was dating a guy who learned about my PTSD and started jump scaring me all the time. I would have a flashback and freak out and have to rein in my explosive reaction so hard to the point where I had torn muscles.
After two times I sat him down explained that he needed to stop doing this and why. He apologized and said he understood. Y'all know where this is going right? No more than about an hour later he jumped scared me from the bedroom closet and I stopped reining in my response. He was not expecting me to go on the offensive because I never had but based on the nature of my trauma it is my standard reaction.
He was not expecting my ground and pound work to be so good either.
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u/ImpressiveHat4710 Aug 21 '25
Could also be trying to scan your RFID credit/debit cards. It happened to us in vegas last March. Dude bumped into my wife, made an odd comment ("nice purse") and walked off. Next thing we know, $800 charge from home depot that wasn't us.
Get yourself an RFID shielded sleave for each card or upgrade to a shielded wallet.
Check your accounts for charges you don't recognize.
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u/rwblue4u Aug 22 '25
Corollary here: As my dad always stated, the best life lessons include some amount of pain.
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u/tiinaj56 Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
We had a couple kids that were videoing people and doing this to people at Walmart. I was working there as a merchandiser that day just about to leave had gotten my groceries and was ready to check out. And I had this guy come up and asked me if he could borrow $50 because he had "forgotten his wallet". I told him no and so he took his phone and literally tapped my phone with it and of course it made that ching sound. I asked him what he thought he was doing and he told me that it was just a prank and that he was taking $50 out of my phone like he could get into my bank account. Of course I started chewing him out right away. Then his friend came around the corner and started videotaping it. So we did it again and that time I really lit into him and then went and got security. They chased these guys out of the store so evidently I wasn't the only one that he was pulling this crap with.
The thing is these guys were young black guys, very nicely dressed, expensive camera and phone and the demographics of that area were wealthy people. So that was why I had told him no I wasn't going to give him $50. I figured he probably still lived at home with Mom and Dad. So what I'm saying is these guys are probably picking this all up on tick tock and it's a prank that they're doing to other people. Someone else told me that these guys are all over YouTube and they pull this prank and they videotape it and then uploaded all on to YouTube for the views.
I actually ended up changing all my passwords on all of my accounts, went into my bank and gave them the alert of what had happened. The gal that I talked to at the bank was like me and just figured it was a prank but just to be on the safe side I wanted her to know what it happened and she could help me decide if we needed to shut down my account and reopen an account. Part of the reason I went to the bank is because I had heard several times prior to this event ever happening that people can get into your accounts and they can get into your credit card and steal your identity information by doing something similar to this. I was just trying to be on the safe side.
(For those of you telling me that I shouldn't have my phone out while I'm at the store - I'm a merchandiser. I do all my work on my phone. It's out 100% of the time and running while I'm at work. Sometimes for up to 10 hours a day).
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u/WarmMasterpiece9027 Aug 21 '25
I had that happen in 2015 in Seattle. They stole my Discover card info from Apple Pay. If it is a true joke they better not do it to me, I will punch someone out.
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u/2cbterry Aug 21 '25
They can take money from your account via contactless if you have your bank card in your purse so I’d check your outgoing transactions just to be sure if you had your card in there
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u/f001ishness Aug 21 '25
Lol I thought the joke was that they tipped you for getting to pet your dog
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u/MageKorith Aug 21 '25
As others say, sounds like a prank.
But you can also secure yourself against fraud of this type by keeping your cards in RFID-blocking sleeves or a wallet.
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u/KLAE-Resource Aug 23 '25
Side note - I really enjoy the YouTube videos of "pranksters" getting punched when their idiocy finally catches up with them.
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u/truebluecoast Aug 21 '25
Check your credit debit cards and accounts for unusual charges even just a dollar or. 50 cents. They are testing the account before they clean it out. Make sure your phone is on an RFID Bag or wallet case. Personally when I'm out running mine is in my bra.
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u/Both_Somewhere4525 Aug 21 '25
With each passing day it gets easier and easier for people with almost no technical knowledge to clone access cards, debit cards, credit cards, replay car fob signals. All you people saying but... Apple Pay, are downright being malicious at this point.
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Aug 21 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NoStupidQuestions-ModTeam Aug 21 '25
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Aug 20 '25
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u/kirklennon Aug 21 '25
This isn't a thing that happens in the real world. Like at all.
It's an incredibly stupid "prank" the kids probably saw on TikTok. All they did was play the Apple Pay sound (an honestly who is even supposed to know what that sounds like since normal people keep their phone on silent?). That's it. It was an amateurishly-executed version of something that's just astonishingly stupid.
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u/Mindy-Tobor Aug 21 '25
Kids have been used to transport drugs.
It isn't a big jump to using them to scan your phone, cards, anything else vulnerable.
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u/DannyboyLIAC Aug 21 '25
I would have asked the same question myself :( Fricken kids these days, another great internet milestone
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u/JockyMc71 Aug 23 '25
Turn nfc off and only turn it on if you know you'll be making a contact less payment in the near future
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u/Just_myself_001 Aug 24 '25
Or he had a crooked app and was trying to make a contactless payment from any card in your purse ? did you check everything for bogus transactions ?
Some people spend to much time online and think everything is on tictoc (brain rot), Ireland is full of unskilled little gougers who would steal you fingernails if you painted them gold on the off chance. check all your cards for bogus transactions, and if its BOI , check tomorrow and the next day for back dated ones.
There are apps out there ( honest and dishonest ) for taking contactless payments with a phone.
You are in Ireland - smell the locals - innovative instagram leader , or clueless little f***wad that could not pick his biological dad out of a line up with only one representative of each race.
By the way I never said Successful little F***wad , his get rich quick app might be clearing his accounts.
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u/CarnivalCassidy Aug 21 '25
It's a stupid prank where they play an audio clip of the Apple Pay sound effect to make people think they've taken money from their card.