Howell bakery falls victim to TikTok scam
HOWELL — TikTok is an important marketing tool for M Street Baking Co. in Howell. So, when the owners recently realized their account had been hacked, it seemed a heavy blow. M Street has worked hard to earn more than 12,500 followers, yet found itself the victim of a scam. The bakery — owned by Nancy, Stephanie and Emily Mazaris — received “a very convincing email from ‘TikTok’ to verify the account and get (a) blue check mark.”
The mark verifies an account is authentic. “I was excited when I opened the imposter’s email about the blue check mark verification,” one of the owners wrote in an emailed statement to The Daily. “The excitement quickly faded once I realized that I had fallen for the scam. Then panic because we recently launched nationwide shipping and those were our customers. They had active orders and needed to communicate with us.”
The scammer changed the account’s password, email and phone number.
The bakery has used TikTok to stream live videos, organize giveaways, and promote their small business at 117 N. Michigan Ave.
The hacking prompted owners to create a backup TikTok account in case they couldn’t regain access to their main account. “Today has been a rough day for us,” co-owner Emily Mazaris said in a video message posted to the backup TikTok account at one point.
Fortunately, late last week the business was able to recover their page at tiktok.com/@mstreetbaking. Ownership received a message from TikTok about a suspicious log-in from another country. TikTok put a lock on the account, and M Street was able to regain access after confirming ownership.