TikTok is flooded with videos promoting fake nude celebrity photo leaks used to push referral rewards for the Temu online megastore.
Temu is an online shopping site offering millions of products at very low prices, most of which are shipped directly from China.
There has been a lot of controversy regarding the online store since its launch in September 2022, with some thinking it's a scam and others loving the cheap merchandise they receive.
To promote the site, Temu allows customers to create referral numbers and links to be shared with family, friends, and social media to earn store credit, free gifts, or points towards their rewards system.
This rewards system lets you play mini-games to earn further store credit that can be claimed for cash rewards or to purchase products.
This system has allowed many people to receive free items while at the same time, Temu gets free marketing from all the referrals posted to social media.
A darker side of Temu referrals
Lately, Temu referral codes on TikTok have taken a darker turn, with scammers creating videos that imply sensitive photos and videos of celebrities have been leaked.
The scammers then prompt the viewer to download the Temu app and enter their referral number to view the leaked content.
Almost all of the videos have captions like, "I thought she was innocent" or "[celebrity_name] got leaked," and show suggestive photos or captions with prompts to download Temu and enter the listed referral number.
BleepingComputer has seen Temu referral scams pretending to be leaks for musicians, actors, and other celebrities, including Olivia Rodrigo, Jenna Ortega, SSSniperWolf, Brooke Monk, Hailie Deegan, and many more.
With the massive number of these Temu referral scams flooding TikTok over the past couple of weeks, other TikTok users have begun noticing them and creating their own videos to question them.
Fake leaks have long been used for scams and malicious activity, including the distribution of malware. Thankfully, in this case, it is only being used to generate store credit for scammers.
However, there is nothing to say that similar tactics will not be used on TikTok in the future for malicious purposes. Therefore, if you see videos like this, do not install suspicious software, as you never know what you may infect your computer with.