Greg's Corner

Never hand over your phone for candy

By Greg Collier

A woman from New York City thought she was being charitable when she handed her phone to a pair of teens who said they were selling candy. Like many of us, the woman said she had no cash on her. Also, the woman didn’t want any candy, but the teens said she could make a donation if she wanted to through payment apps Zelle or Venmo. The woman used Zelle on a regular basis and wanted to make a small donation.

In order to send someone money on Zelle, you need to know their email address or phone number. The woman asked the teens for a phone number to send the money to, but the teens said they’ll enter the number on the woman’s phone for her. The phone was handed to the teens who entered the phone number on the Zelle app and the woman made a five dollar donation and thought nothing of it. That was until she went to the grocery store and discovered her bank account was empty. Before giving the woman back her phone, the teens sent $1800 from the woman’s account to the phone number they entered.

There’s another variation of this scam we’ve discussed before. Typically, it involves the scammer claiming they’re in some kind of situation where they need to make a phone call, but their phone is dead. The scammers often claim their car has broken down, but there are other situations they use in this scam. Once the victim hands over the phone to the scammer, the scammer will open up one of the victim’s payment or banking apps and send the victim’s money to another account. The scam has often been called the Good Samaritan scam.

Getting back to today’s scam, it turns out the whole incident was caught on the security camera footage at the coffee shop where the woman was approached. The victim thought she wouldn’t have any issue getting her money back from her bank since she had proof she was scammed. However, like with most victims who have been scammed through Zelle, Bank of America allegedly refused reimbursement, since to them, it appeared like the victim had authorized the transaction. Also, like many Zelle scam victims, B of A said they would reopen the investigation after the victim took her story to local media.

To better protect yourself from a scam like this, try to avoid handing your phone over to strangers, and especially don’t hand them the phone while one of your financial apps is open. Please keep in mind that apps like Zelle and Venmo are only supposed to be used between family and friends. If your phone has a fingerprint reader, consider using that to secure your payment apps on your phone, or at least use a PIN.