Greg's Corner

Victim taken twice in Cash App scam

Cash App is a wallet app made by the company Square, who developed a popular system that allowed anyone to accept credit card payments on their smartphones. The Cash App allows users to make or receive online payments. With just about anything that involves money and the internet, Cash App has been used in a number of scams.

One of the most common scams is called ‘money flipping’. Scammers will go on social media promising their victims a large amount of money if the victim just sends the scammer a small payment. For example, a scammer might promise $500 if you send them $50. As you might expect, the scammer just makes off with the small payment. However, that’s not the scam we’ll be discussing today.

A woman in Pennsylvania received a request on Cash App from who she thought was her husband for $250. The person making the request appeared to have the same first name as her husband so she sent the money. It wasn’t until she got home and spoke to her husband that he told her he didn’t send the request. So now, the woman was out $250.

To be fair, this could have just been a coincidence that the person making the request had her husband’s first name and made an erroneous request from the woman in Pennsylvania. However, we wouldn’t put it past scammers to either request money from random Cash App users, or stalk their victims on social media and pretend to be their spouses. The woman who lost the $250 did request a refund from the person who made the initial request but her refund request was denied meaning it could have been a scammer.

Then the woman wanted to contact Cash App’s customer support and did a web search for their support phone number. She called the number that came up and was instructed to download another app called Quick Support and they would be able to get her money back. Cash App doesn’t have a customer support number, they can only be reached online. Instead of getting her refund, the customer support scammers were able to drain her account of over $4000.

If you use any kind of wallet apps like Zelle, Venmo, or Cash App, use them judiciously as many of them are vulnerable to scammers. Always double-check that the person making a request for payment is actually someone you know.

Also, never do a Google search for a company’s customer service number. Too many scammers take out ads on Google posing as legitimate customer service departments. Instead, go to the company’s website and look for a section that says ‘contact us’. It can be difficult to find sometimes and may be at the bottom of the website.