Woman leaves Target after tapping Apple Pay for self-checkout. Then she fears the store could send her to jail: ‘I’m so confused’
Shopping at self-checkout should be quick and easy. But things can get confusing when someone leaves the store thinking they paid, only to realize later that the payment may not have gone through.
That is especially stressful when the shopper has already taken everything home. Suddenly, a simple checkout mistake can look like something much more serious.
TikTok creator @anasofiacd5 says this happened to her after shopping at Target. When she noticed the Target charge was missing from her credit card activity the next morning, she decided to return to the store and explain what happened.
She had no idea how Target would react
The creator says she had gone to Target the previous day to buy some sweaters she found on clearance and two packs of socks. She was in a rush, so she used the self-checkout. While payment problems at Target self-checkout can happen, she had no reason at the time to think anything had gone wrong.
She explains that she normally uses Apple Pay but took out her card that day and tapped it at checkout. Believing she had completed the purchase, she put everything in a bag and left the store.
It was not until the following morning that something seemed wrong. While looking through her credit card activity, the creator noticed there was no Target transaction. “I’m so confused at this point,” she recalls. She tried to remember what had happened during checkout and eventually concluded that her payment apparently had not gone through.
That left her with merchandise she had taken home without actually paying for it. The TikToker stressed that she had not intended to steal anything, but she was still worried about how Target might view the accidental theft. By then, she had already washed everything and wanted to keep the items. Instead of simply returning them, she decided to take them back to Target and ask to pay for them.
She was not exactly calm about the plan. “Maybe they will take me to jail and I will rot in there forever,” she joked before walking into the store. In a follow-up video, the creator confirmed that she did not end up in jail. However, she says returning to the store was more nerve-racking than she expected. “I was really nervous. I was shaking. I was about to shed a tear,” she says.
The creator says she explained what had happened to an employee, who initially seemed confused by the situation. She worried that the worker might think she had intentionally stolen the merchandise and returned only because she regretted it. The employee then checked whether the creator had actually made the purchase with her card. After apparently confirming that she had not, the employee offered to charge her for the merchandise.
“If you want me to, I can charge you,” the creator recalls the worker saying. That was exactly what she wanted. “Yes, please, please, please, please charge me,” she recalls responding, even joking that they could charge her twice. She says she paid and received a receipt, which she plans to keep after commenters advised her to hold onto proof that she eventually paid.
The unusual confession drew plenty of responses from viewers. Many focused less on the accidental failure to pay and more on the fact that she voluntarily returned. “The fact you came back speaks volumes on your character,” one person wrote. “This is what integrity looks like,” another said. Others pointed out that card transactions do not always appear immediately. “My Target transactions don’t show up for like 1-3 days for some reason,” one viewer commented.
The TikTok creator ultimately came away with a much less dramatic outcome than she had feared. “So now we know if this happens to you, you can just go and say sorry and they will be understanding,” she says.
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