Community Chat

[shoekitty]

My granddaughter got scammed out of 1200 from her checking with a scammer using Zelle,  she contacted bothe Zelle and her bank.  Neither did anything although they opened a case.  The weird part was the guy who did it through Zelle  had it deposited into his acct.  it was a major bank. She never got money back.  

[gidgetgh]

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@shoekitty wrote:

My granddaughter got scammed out of 1200 from her checking with a scammer using Zelle,  she contacted bothe Zelle and her bank.  Neither did anything although they opened a case.  The weird part was the guy who did it through Zelle  had it deposited into his acct.  it was a major bank. She never got money back.  

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@shoekitty - correct. From what I understand, Zelle "partners" with banks and offers their services but it's not the same strength as banks offering protection against fraud as they do with credit cards.  There have been cases of accounts being totally cleaned out and the banks have done nothing. The people are just out the money.  There is no recourse from anyone.   Bank of America and Wells Fargo were 2 of the banks Clark Howard gave in his piece in Zelle as examples, but it is not limited just just those banks. 

I knew nothing about Zelle and when this popped up on Facebook, I don't know that I'd even heard of it, but I listened to his audio post.  I found it very concerning. 

I am so sorry that happened to your granddaughter. 

[shoekitty]

@gidgetgh   You are so right.  What really ired me was they had the acct number the of the bank the money was deposited in.  Her bank said their was basically no recourse with Zelle, as her bank was not connected with them. They did open a file and did investigate.  I wonder if you could go to police with something like this?   When we had identity theft we filed a police report as the credit company recommended,   In our case the thief opened huge acct with HSN, ordered a few thousand but worth of stuff.  HSN was going to send stuff out and they got red flag when scammer changed the mailing address in route.  I have to say, I have never had an acct with HSN but their fraud dept is stellar. Wow, really

. good. I filed police report anyway, HSN didn't persue scam as they were out no money.  A few other places they ordered from did get merchandise.   Llbean has a poor fraud dept, they said it wasn't enough money involved to persue, p

[scatcat]

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@shoekitty wrote:

My granddaughter got scammed out of 1200 from her checking with a scammer using Zelle,  she contacted bothe Zelle and her bank.  Neither did anything although they opened a case.  The weird part was the guy who did it through Zelle  had it deposited into his acct.  it was a major bank. She never got money back.  

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@shoekitty 

Did your granddaughter send the money to his account or did he hack into her account and steal it?

I know people who were scammed into giving people money. Happens to senior citizens unfortunately a lot 

[shoekitty]

@scatcat  He hacked into her acct.  there was more to it, as it was a very intricate scam. These people were organized.  It was nearly 2 years ago, and I forget all the details now.  But the banks, had a hard time following the trail.  But they had his WF acct number money went into.  She didn't bank there, but he did.  

[Sage04]

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@gidgetgh wrote:

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@Sage04 wrote:

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@gidgetgh wrote:

I can't post the link here, but if you use Zelle, you should search for Clark Howard on Facebook or go to his website, Clarkhoward dot com and listen to the audio he posted about the dangers of using Zelle.

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@gidgetgh  nothing against you but I don't have the time to waste listening to him. Everyone has to make their own choice and I choose Zelle.

There are a lot of things most of us shouldn't do, but that's life.

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You don't have time to "waste" listening to him?  I personally don't care if you listen to him or not, though he has a terrific reputation as a consumer advocate.  I was just putting the information out there for anyone who might be interested. Use whoever you want, but sometimes it's good for all of us to educate ourselves about potential problems, which hopefully will never arise.  No different than all the recall notices that are posted here.  Read, absorb the information and make an informed choice.  

@gidgetgh  yes, years ago I heard about not using Zelle from other people who never used Zelle but i chose to use Zelle and I'm very happy.

Hope your information will reach some people so that they will be informed but this information about Zelle has been going around for years.

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[shoekitty]

I was curious about my granddaughters case, as it had been a while.  So I just texted her.  She said that her bank refunded her the 2400, (it wasn't 1200, but 2400]. She said it took over 8 months.  They told her they do not normally do this in cases like hers, but she had been a customer for 10 years.   She had opened it when she was 15!   My recall on her case was right about Zelle though.  She did cancel them and uses another service.  

[RainyDayGal]

I used to when it first came out - briefly.  Long story short, after 3 different times spending 3 hours each time on the phone with the "IT experts" at the bank - I no longer use it.

[Another new name Sue]

That makes me so angry when companies say, "we don't normally do this...but just for you."

(As well as, " we are experiencing a high volume of calls. ")

My friend had an experience with lost money using their bill pay system to pay a person (not a big company) and Chase isn't stepping up to track down what happened or reimbursing him for the lost money. The payee never got or deposited the check. Personally, I've never had a problem with bill pay or Zelle.

[gidgetgh]

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@Another new name Sue wrote:

That makes me so angry when companies say, "we don't normally do this...but just for you."

(As well as, " we are experiencing a high volume of calls. ")

My friend had an experience with lost money using their bill pay system to pay a person (not a big company) and Chase isn't stepping up to track down what happened or reimbursing him for the lost money. The payee never got or deposited the check. Personally, I've never had a problem with bill pay or Zelle.

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That would be the problem. They are partnering with Zelle and offering the service, but they don't assume any responsibility if things go wrong.