A terrified mother has sent an urgent warning to parents after the arrival of Uber Eats on her doorstep alerted her to her teenage daughter being groomed online by someone asking her to send disturbing messages.
Beki Giunta, a former nurse from Queensland, discovered her daughter had been targeted by a predator when the birth showed up on their doorstep, despite no one in the house having placed the order.
Her 16-year-old daughter, who has autism, said it was for her but she had not paid for it, making Ms. Giunta even more suspicious about who had.
After confiscating her daughter’s phone, she found “nasty” messages between the girl and an older man who said he would send free food in exchange for voice messages in which the teenager would humiliate him.
The mother-of-two reported the incident to police and is now warning others to ensure their children do not fall into similar traps.
“If you have teenagers going through their lives, make sure they’re safe (and) educate them or you run the risk of some crazy person getting your address,” she said.
Beki Giunta (pictured), a former nurse from Queensland, stopped her 16-year-old daughter from talking to a creep online who asked the girl to send ‘nasty’ voice messages
The mother-of-two became suspicious when an Uber Eats delivery showed up at her door, despite no one in the house ordering food (stock image)
Ms. Giunta recalled the moment she realized her daughter was in danger in a video she posted to TikTok on Wednesday.
“One afternoon there was a knock on the door and Uber Eats was offered, no one ordered it and I thought, OK, what the heck, and I went to ask my daughter, ‘Did you order food?’” she said.
Her daughter tried to lie her way out of the situation before her mother confiscated her phone to find out what happened.
“There’s no such thing as privacy with a cell phone in my house, especially if you’re a teenager, I don’t care,” she said.
“So I searched her phone and saw her talking to a man who asked her to call him bad names and say nasty things to him and in return he would buy things.”
Ms. Giunta asked her daughter how she found the grooming salon’s account and was told that one of her friends also sent him voice messages in exchange for free stuff.
The mother immediately blocked the grooming salon and took the matter to the police, who told her they may be in danger now that their address had been given.
Police told Ms Giunta there was little they could do other than encourage her to install security cameras around her home to ensure no one was lurking.
She then sat down with her daughter to explain how dangerous the situation could have been.
Ms Giunta reported the incident to the police, who said there was little they could do to help, but told her to install security cameras at her home as soon as possible.
Ms Giunta has continued to teach her daughter about online safety since the incident to ensure she understood the seriousness of the situation.
The couple now has solid rules in place to ensure something like this can never happen again.
Her daughter has since turned off her location settings and no longer gives out personal information or posts photos that could reveal her location.
“This man was grooming my child so I took him to the police station and they were quite concerned about it because this man now has my address,” she said.
‘We didn’t sleep for weeks because we thought: cool, someone is going to break in…
“Just be safe because this damn creep could have been at my door or even watching us the whole time.”