Peer to Peer Payment Payment Service (P2P) Zelle is used by many people to quickly and conveniently send money electronically from your credit card or bank account. Sending money through Zelle only requires you to enter the recipient’s phone number or email address. Zelle is an app created by the company Early Warning Services (EWS) which is owned by seven of the biggest banks in the United States including Bank of America and Capital One. Presently 2,400 banks and credit unions offer Zelle as a service.
Unfortunately, Zelle has proven to be easily exploited by scammers and unlike 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. In addition to scammers luring their victims to pay for worthless items through Zelle, scammers are also 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.
Recently a new variation on a Zelle scam has been reported in New York City where Briana Siaca was scammed by teenagers who approached her asking for a donation to their basketball team which was raising money to buy new uniforms. They told her that Zelle would be the simplest and easiest way to make the donation and took her phone as they distracted her with more conversation about their basketball team one of them used her Zelle account to transfer $2,000.
TIPS
Before signing up for any Zelle or any other 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 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.
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.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive free daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day
For years here on Scamicide, I have told you, “Trust me, you can’t trust anyone.” Using modern technology, scammers contact people in vast numbers through computer-generated phone calls, text messages, and emails that lure you into becoming a scam victim. Being a scam victim can be devastating, and it can be very difficult to determine if that call, email, or text message you receive is from a scammer. That is where ScamAssist® from Iris® Powered by Generali comes in. Using Iris’ proprietary technology and real human resources, ScamAssist can tell users the likelihood of the communication they received is to be a scam. If Iris believes the solicitation to be fraudulent, their team of identity fraud resolution experts will report the scam to the authorities and help the individual minimize the damage. While Iris® Powered by Generali doesn’t offer ScamAssist for direct purchase, if you’re a business professional looking to fill a product gap in your portfolio and want to provide customers a service they’ll truly value, contact Iris to learn how you can get started. Create a seamless experience for your customers by offering ScamAssist in your branding. Contact Iris at IrisIdentityProtection.com/Scamicide to learn more.