My daughter was conned into paying a TikTok dancer £2k – Apple let me down

A PARENT has hit out after a TikTok dancer “duped” their youngest daughter, who has learning difficulties, to handover £2,000 worth of “coins”.

The parent, who has not been identified other than by the initials AH, said their eldest daughter got a new iPhone as a gift last Christmas.

2

Then their youngest daughter who has autism, aged 10, started playing on the phone and became the “victim” of the dancer known as “Ohidur247” on TikTok who they claim “duped” her into giving him “coins” worth a total of £2,012.

The parent only realised what had happened when they started getting email invoices from Apple in their inbox and they took the phone away from her.

They say they followed Apple’s process to request refunds for the 23 successive purchases, but they were refused.

The parent then emailed Apple “multiple times” but had no response.

They also wrote to its regional head office in Ireland but got no acknowledgement.

Eventually, they received an email with a link to its legal process, which they say contained “very little information at all”.

Writing to the Telegraph’s consumer champion Katie Morley, they said: “This is such a lot of money to lose in the space of a few minutes in this way.

“I believe Apple has let me down by failing to identify the unusual activity on my account and protecting me by blocking the suspicious payments.

“I also feel its customer care has been nonexistent.”

They added that they wanted to find out how the TikToker “convinced” their daughter to hand over the money and because of her condition they hadn’t been able to fully establish what had happened from her account of events.

The TikTok account “Ohidur247” had four million followers and was blue tick verified.

Following a query by the Telegraph, TikTok responded by saying it had investigated but was unable to explain what the payment was for.

It said, however, that no rule had been breached.

A message sent to “Ohidur247” received a bounceback from TikTok saying the account had been suspended.

Having contacted TikTok again, it confirmed that in a further investigation it had established the account holder had breached its guidelines in relation to fraud and scams.

It said the profile had been enticing a number of users to pay it “coins” in return for followers but “nothing ever materialised in return,” according to The Telegraph.

While “Ohidur247” has been permanently banned from live-streaming, their four million-strong account remains verified and active.

Apple, meanwhile, took action to clear the situation up and refunded the loss in full, but emphasised the need for activating child mode on the phone.

The Sun Online has contacted TikTok for comment.

2