Before I get into today’s Scam of the day, I have an important announcement about Scamicide.com. We are making some major changes to the Scamicide website both behind the scenes and in the appearance and serviceability of Scamicide.com. I am very excited about these changes which include more convenient access to the thousands of Scams of the day that make up the archives of Scamicide.com. I think you will find these changes make Scamicide even more helpful. However with any such changes come the possibility of momentary disruptions as the behind the scenes changes are made. Don’t be concerned if there is a problem of short duration regarding your gaining access to Scamicide. Myself and all of the people behind the scenes will be working hard to make the transition as smooth as possible and hope to maintain subscribers with uninterrupted service. We will do our best and I hope you like the new Scamicide.com.

Now for today’s Scam of the day.

Peer to Peer Payment Payment Services (P2P) such as Zelle, Venmo, ApplePay PayPal, Square Cash and PopMoney are popular ways to quickly and conveniently send money electronically from your credit card or bank account. They also are easy ways to be scammed and unlike with scams targeting your credit cards directly, you may not have as much protection under the law to get your money back if you do get scammed. Zelle which originated in 2017 is operated by a consortium of banks and appears on your mobile banking app. Sending money through Zelle only requires you to enter the recipient’s phone number or email address. In addition to scammers luring their victims to pay for worthless items through P2P services, scammers have also been sending phishing emails and text messages in which they lure their victims into providing their Zelle usernames, passwords and PINs to take over their victims’ bank accounts through their Zelle accounts.

TIPS

Before signing up for any P2P service, you should familiarize yourself with their fraud protection rules. In the fine print of many P2P services, you may find that you have little, if any, protection if you use the account to purchase something that ends up to be a scam. While PayPal offers significant protection from fraudulent transactions, Zelle and Venmo, for example do not offer such protection, which is why these services should never be used for commercial transactions, but only to transfer small amounts of money to people you know. In order to protect your account from being hacked and being taken over by a scammer who could access your credit card or bank account, you should use a PIN or other dual factor authentication whenever your particular service provides for it. In addition if your account is tied to a credit card, you should be able to get the amount fraudulently taken refunded from your credit card company in accordance with federal law and if it is tied to a bank account, you should be able to get the money refunded if you report it immediately pursuant to the Electronic Transfer Act.

To avoid having your Zelle account and other accounts from being taken over by hackers, never provide your username, password or PIN in response to any email, text message or phone call unless you have absolutely confirmed that the request for this information is legitimate, which it never is. You can confirm this by contacting your bank or other company by calling them at a telephone number you know is accurate. Even if you get a call that appears to come from your bank or other company with which you do business, your Caller ID can be tricked by spoofing to make the call appear legitimate when it is not.

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