Few places ever feel truly safe for women, and a woman on TikTok shared that now it seems they can’t even shop inside a Walmart without being followed and made to feel unsafe.
“Being a woman in this world is so f*cking terrifying sometimes,” Lauren Nicole (@laurenjnicole) says.
In the viral video, Nicole is filming from inside her car and is clearly shaken up. Seemingly on the verge of tears, she recounts the terrifying and potentially dangerous situation she just experienced at Walmart.
Nicole explains that she was inside her local Walmart shopping but could feel that she was being followed the entire time by two men. Every aisle she’d go to, they’d be in, and when she went to the bathroom, they were the first people she saw when she came out.
At first, she thought she was just being paranoid, but eventually notified a Walmart worker of her concern and asked for help. But the person said there wasn’t anything they could do.
Nicole’s gut told her to leave the store and just come back tomorrow. As she walked to her car and didn’t see the men in sight, she started to calm down. Once in the car, she locked the doors and got on the phone with a friend, telling them what happened.
That’s when she saw them: the men walking with a girl whom they seemingly don’t know.
“I just had like a really bad feeling. I’m like, I don’t think this girl knows them. Like, something isn’t right,” Nicole says.
Conflicted about her safety versus seeing a woman potentially in trouble, Nicole got out of her car and walked straight up to the woman. She asked if she knew the men and the woman responded that she didn’t, but they told her they hit her car in the parking lot and wanted her to see the damage.
Nicole told the woman that she had just seen the men follow her for 30 minutes in the store, so there was no way they hit her car.
“And she’s looking at me, and I’m looking at her, and these two guys are standing there, and I can tell they’re getting f*cking nervous. And I said, ‘Let’s go back inside, I’m gonna grab a worker,'” Nicole says.
Upon hearing this, the men disappeared.
“I’m shaking. This is just your reminder. Be aware of your surroundings,” Nicole concludes in the clip.
While it’s unclear what the men’s intentions were, there have been rising social media reports of multiple parking lot scams designed to rob people or kidnap them. However, many viral posts warning against potential human trafficking methods have been debunked as hoaxes.
@laurenjnicole ♬ original sound – lauren nicole
Nicole’s video is just shy of a quarter of a million views and over 1,500 comments as of Monday morning.
People shared helpful information and applauded Nicole for her swift action.
“We aren’t safe anywhere. You saved her life,” a person wrote.
“if someone claims to have hit your car describe your car incorrectly and see if they agree with the description. lie check,” another commented.
“When you told the workers that you thought they were following you they should’ve offered to walk you to your car and had eyes on them,” a further commenter said.
The Daily Dot reached out to Nicole and Walmart for comment via email.