A North Carolina shopper said in a TikTok video that she turned off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on her phone before reaching the parking lot at a Walmart in Huntersville. She described the step as part of a small experiment she wanted to run inside the store.
The woman, who posts as @kamo_lmfao, shared the account in a video that has gained 86,900 views. The caption on the post read “be not deceived.” She said she had just left the store and was speaking from her car.
She stated that Walmart has cameras at every entrance and that many stores now use digital price tags on the shelves. She said she used to shop at a Concord Walmart, where the prices on the tags would go blank and basically reset when she walked in.
Shopper said she photographed digital tags before her card declined at checkout
She said she wanted to try something different at the Huntersville store. “I cut off my Wi-Fi, my Bluetooth before I went in there, and I take pictures of the aisles, the price tags on the aisles before I pick anything up, right?” she said in the video.
She stated that she bought what she needed and kept the photos ready in case a price rang up differently later. She said there were no problems with the items themselves. Walmart’s customer service issues have included disputes over pricing, as when a price tag disagreement led to a viral confrontation.
At the register, she said she used a physical card. She claimed Walmart does not have Apple Pay or tap to pay, so shoppers typically use physical cards. She said she inserted her card into the reader and it declined. “Why does the card reader decline my card? Huh? Weird,” she said. She stated that she knew she had money and tried the card again. She said it declined again.
She claimed the reader accepted the same physical card only after she took her phone out, turned the Wi-Fi on, and then turned it back off. “And it wasn’t until I took my phone out, turned my Wi-Fi on, and then turned it back off did the card reader accept my credit, my physical card payment,” she said. She closed the video by saying, “Take, take what you need from that.”
Viewers left comments under the video. One commenter said a relative’s cash purchase still appeared in the Walmart app. They wrote, “my niece paid with cash and the sale ended up in her Walmart app.” Another commenter said they believed the store was using facial recognition software. They wrote, “I believe they are using facial recognition software.”
A third commenter said the account sounded like grounds for a lawsuit over privacy and pricing. They wrote, “It sounds like Walmart is ready for a class action lawsuit. Invasion/privacy, unauthorized data usage & accepted cookies & false advertisement or discriminatory price changes.”
Other commenters said they planned to leave their phones at home or questioned why people still shop at Walmart. One wrote, “I’m gonna start leaving my phone at home.” Another wrote, “Why are we still shopping at Walmart.” Such concerns about Walmart’s practices are not new, like when a customer refused to give personal info at self checkout but the machine allegedly displayed her name and number.
One commenter pointed to common card-reader problems and noted that GPS can stay on even when Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are off. They wrote, “The card readers always suck. Also your gps is still active on your phone even with WiFi and Bluetooth off.”
Published: Sep 17, 2026 07:30 am