A Spark delivery driver shared a nightmare scenario in which she was enlisted to deliver two Nintendo Switches to a customer, encountered a weird situation when trying to deliver it, and then learned it seemed like a tipbait scheme in which she made no tip at all for her efforts.
The TikTok video documenting the tipbait incident comes from creator Sara Amber Victoria (@lilbabytrex), getting more than 17,000 views as of Monday. In it, she described a $52 Walmart pickup order that included an order for two Nintendo Switches—a welcome sight since she says she hadn’t made any money on a particular day of driving.
“I was so excited for this one; it was six miles to drive,” she says. “To get there, I noticed that it was three orders and one of them had two Nintendo Switches on them. The tip was for $41, and I know that Nintendo Switches, the ones that you don’t plug into the TV, cost around $200 each. So it’s like, oh, a 10% tip.”
But upon arriving, and following the directions to ring the bell, she became concerned when no one answered.
“I am not about to leave two Nintendo Switches unattended on somebody’s front porch. Like, that’s obvious. So after about a minute of waiting, a guy walks up behind me from the front yard and he goes, ‘Didn’t you read my note?’ He said, ‘I told you to ring the doorbell and leave it.'”
There was nothing in the directions about just leaving it, the creator says, and after she explained she wasn’t just going to leave expensive Switches unattended, she reports, “He grabbed the bag out of my hand tells me thank you and then when I walked to my car, he walked back to a car.”
@lilbabytrex PSA – Dont tipbait 🗣️ what do you guys think was happening in this situation? #sparkdelivery #sparkdeliverydriver #sparkdeliverydrivers #sparkwalmart #walmartdelivery #workvlog #psa #tipbaiting #tipbait #sidehustles #sidehustle #workstorytime #storytime #sidehustlestories #fy ♬ original sound – Sara Amber Victoria
She then claims that the service she delivered with takes 24 hours to show tips, and then learned the day after the odd exchange that she received “a $0 tip” for it.
“If you’re broke, just say that,” she says. “But here’s my thing. I think that they were scammers. I don’t even think that was their house. They came up in a car, grabbed the items got back in the car. They probably use another address. I don’t know.”
She finished with a PSA against tipbait tactics, encouraging customers to tip drivers as they’re doing a service on your behalf.
Commenters had thoughts.
“They probably wanted to report them missing and were mad that you didn’t just leave the bag,” one theorized. “I’m so sorry bc ur tip should not have been jeopardized.”
Another said, “Sounds like they were just using that address and we’re gonna claim they never recieved them to for their money back.”
Someone else observed, “I notice tipbait happens a lot on Spark.”
Sara responded, “This is the second time it’s happened to me within the two weeks I just started.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Sara and Walmart via email.