Greg's Corner

Online seller gets 8 Zelle scammers in an hour

By Greg Collier

It was around this time last week, we first brought you the story about a Zelle scam that’s been targeting online sellers. In this scam, the buyer insists on paying with Zelle. The seller then receives an email that claims to be from Zelle. The email claims you need to upgrade to a Zelle business account, which requires the buyer to send an additional $300. The buyer will then send the seller phony screenshots that make it look like the buyer paid the seller’s price along with the $300, The buyer will then demand the back from the seller. However, the buyer hasn’t really paid anything, and the seller would be out $300 if they send the money to the seller.

Now, we’re getting some more information about this scam. A woman from New York recently shared her story on TikTok after encountering some Zelle scammers. She was attempting to sell a couch on Facebook Marketplace. At least eight different people tried paying the woman through Zelle within an hour after the listing was posted. The scammers were said to have been asking for the seller’s email address to send the payment through Zelle. That’s not how Zelle works, though. More than likely, the scammers wanted to send the email about signing up for a Zelle business account. These emails will have Zelle in the name, but will often come from services like Gmail. Again, this scam isn’t exclusive to Zelle and Marketplace, but they seem to be the most common avenues for this scam.

The New York woman told her followers that Zelle is not the scam, which is technically true. But as we’ve been chronicling for almost a year, Zelle isn’t exactly standing by their customers when it comes to scams. In the Zelle app, you should receive a warning that says you shouldn’t send money to people you don’t know, but that seems to be the extent of their user protection. Zelle and its associated banks are very reluctant to offer refunds to scam victims. Most scam victims, who do get their money back from Zelle, usually have to go to their local media first. That doesn’t sound like a very consumer-friendly way of helping a scam victim.

If you’re selling items online, we recommend following these three rules. The first is to only sell locally. The second is to only accept cash. And the third is to meet the buyer at a local police department. While these rules are not guarantees that you won’t be scammed, they do go a long way in preventing scams.