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When Customers Say Their Money Was Stolen on Zelle, Banks Often Refuse to Pay

6 points by gnicholas 4y ago

gnicholas 4y ago
I've never used Zelle, and it seems like there are now plenty of different ways to send money (PayPal/Venmo, Apple Pay/Cash, Square Cash). What is the ideal use case for each? How many does a person need to be signed up for to cover most use cases?
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Zelle is typically free to send and receives funds immediately, and is implemented by almost all major US commercial banks and a bunch of smaller ones [1]. If you’re a merchant, you’re likely to take a credit card, although I have paid contractors four figure amounts for work with Zelle (splitting payments across days if limits are too low) as the merchant fee is material at larger dollar amounts. Zelle is designed for both peer to peer payments that previously would’ve been cash or a check, but also business transactions. (I won’t use PayPal or Venmo due to their business practices) [1] https://www.zellepay.com/get-started https://www.zellepay.com/get-started
galaxyLogic 4y ago
In the example case the robber used "multiple money transfer apps including Zelle". How can we protect ourselves? Remove all banking apps from your phone?
- gnicholas 4y ago
  If you have an iPhone set up properly, you can remotely wipe the device, [1] which of course means you can't track it anymore. But it means they won't be able to get data off your phone, send emails in your name, or drain money from your linked accounts. 1: https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/erase-a-device-mmfc0ef36f/icloud https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/erase-a-device-mmfc0e...
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Nope, that won't fully protect you either. > In early February, Chuck Ruoff said, a thief transferred his mobile phone number to another device through an attack technique called “SIM swapping.” The thief then used Mr. Ruoff’s number to get into his accounts at Bank of America and extract $3,450 through Zelle… > …“I said repeatedly, ‘I’ve never used Zelle. I never authorized this,’” said Mr. Ruoff, who has been a Bank of America customer for 34 years.

6 points by gnicholas 4y ago

I've never used Zelle, and it seems like there are now plenty of different ways to send money (PayPal/Venmo, Apple Pay/Cash, Square Cash). What is the ideal use case for each? How many does a person need to be signed up for to cover most use cases?

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Zelle is typically free to send and receives funds immediately, and is implemented by almost all major US commercial banks and a bunch of smaller ones [1]. If you’re a merchant, you’re likely to take a credit card, although I have paid contractors four figure amounts for work with Zelle (splitting payments across days if limits are too low) as the merchant fee is material at larger dollar amounts. Zelle is designed for both peer to peer payments that previously would’ve been cash or a check, but also business transactions. (I won’t use PayPal or Venmo due to their business practices) [1] https://www.zellepay.com/get-started https://www.zellepay.com/get-started

galaxyLogic 4y ago

In the example case the robber used "multiple money transfer apps including Zelle". How can we protect ourselves? Remove all banking apps from your phone?

gnicholas 4y ago
If you have an iPhone set up properly, you can remotely wipe the device, [1] which of course means you can't track it anymore. But it means they won't be able to get data off your phone, send emails in your name, or drain money from your linked accounts. 1: https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/erase-a-device-mmfc0ef36f/icloud https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/erase-a-device-mmfc0e...
jrochkind1 4y ago
Nope, that won't fully protect you either. > In early February, Chuck Ruoff said, a thief transferred his mobile phone number to another device through an attack technique called “SIM swapping.” The thief then used Mr. Ruoff’s number to get into his accounts at Bank of America and extract $3,450 through Zelle… > …“I said repeatedly, ‘I’ve never used Zelle. I never authorized this,’” said Mr. Ruoff, who has been a Bank of America customer for 34 years.