Nahema Bryan said she was desperate to find a new place to live.
The house she had been renting in Trenton was sold, and she had only nine days left before her Nov. 1, 2021, deadline to get out. “I was running out of time,” Bryan said.
A family member sent her information about a house in Hamilton that was listed for rent on Facebook and she texted the landlord.
She didn’t know it at the time, but it was all a scam.
“I was so desperate that I fell for it all,” she said. “When I look back, all the signs were there.”
Bryan said she wanted to share her experience so others wouldn’t fall for a similar scam.
Over text, the “landlord” told her to pay an application fee of $160 via Zelle, a money transfer system run by major banks, and then fill out an online application, text messages show.
Bryan paid the fee to someone named “Paige” at a Wells Fargo bank account.
Quickly, she was approved.
Next, the landlord told her to send a $1,000 deposit over Zelle, also to “Paige,” text messages show.
She did.
Then the landlord said Bryan could get the keys the next day if she would transfer a $1,000 security deposit — how this was different from the original deposit is unclear — and $1,000 for the first month’s rent. And she should hurry, he said.
She was told the security deposit should be sent to Paige while the rent should go to someone named “Howard” with a Chase bank account, text messages show.
Eager for early access to the house, Bryan transferred the security deposit. But when she tried to transfer the rent, her phone froze and she wasn’t sure it went through.
Bryan told the landlord she had to call her bank.
His tone changed, text messages show.
“You have to call them to release the money,” the landlord wrote with urgency.
Bryan called Bank of America immediately, and the representative confirmed all the payments, totaling $3,160, went out via Zelle.
“They said it was a scam so I told them to stop the payments,” she said. “(The representative) put in a request to get my money refunded to me.”
She also filed a police report and complaints with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and the Better Business Bureau.
Six weeks later, Bank of America denied her dispute.
“They said they couldn’t give the money back because Wells Fargo and Chase don’t want to give me the money back,” she said, and she asked Bamboozled for help.
BEHIND THE SCAMS
Zelle payment scams have been on the rise, authorities say, and the system itself has come under criticism by lawmakers.
In April, Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called on the company behind Zelle to do more to protect consumers and help them get their money back.
“This widespread fraud on money transfer apps has affected nearly 18 million Americans,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Zelle’s parent company, Early Warning Systems, which is owned by seven of the largest U.S. banks.
“Alarmingly, both your company and the big banks who both own and partner with the platform have abdicated responsibility for fraudulent transactions, leaving consumers with no way to get back their funds,” the lawmakers said. “And banks have chosen to let consumers suffer, blaming them for authorizing fraudulent transactions.”
After reviewing Bryan’s text messages, we asked Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Chase to look at Bryan’s transactions.
While we waited, we took a closer look at the alleged scammers.
Bryan provided Bamboozled with last names for Howard and Paige, along with their email addresses, which Bryan acquired during the Zelle transactions. While the names are probably phony, we tried some phone numbers found in public records, but they were all disconnected.
Emails sent to the two addresses Bryan provided were not returned.
We also tried to contact the owner of the house, which is a company, but those numbers, too, were out of order.
The Zelle scam and others like it are known as victim-assisted crimes because the transactions couldn’t have happened without the account holder’s help. It’s true that Bryan was tricked, but the banks know the accounts to which the money was sent.
Would they be able to claw it back?
The three banks responded, saying sending money through Zelle is like sending cash, which makes it hard to get the money back. They said customers should be sure they know who they are sending money to before finalizing a Zelle transaction, and that they are trying to raise customer awareness about such scams.
No one offered to return any of the $3,160.
The banks do know where those payments were sent. Perhaps the accounts are no longer open. But if they are, the banks could freeze the accounts while they investigate, if not immediately claw back money in the accounts.
But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
Menendez called Bryan’s experience “a clear example of how Zelle is being used to scam consumers and jeopardize their financial well-being.” He said Zelle and the banks should be held “accountable for their ongoing failure to address these scams and provide appropriate redress to defrauded consumers,”
So how can you protect yourself?
Don’t send money to anyone — whether Zelle, Western Union, CashApp, Venmo or any other kind of system — unless you know who you’re sending it to. Really, really know them.
If the person requesting the money starts to pressure you, rushes you or otherwise threatens you, it’s a big fat red flag.
If you’re not sure, don’t send it. Speak to a trusted friend or family member and get a second opinion about the transaction.
“I’m never going to get that money back,” Bryan said when she learned the banks’ decisions.
Her search for a rental continues. She even texting with one landlord she thought sounded suspicious.
“He was persistent but I just cut it off,” she said. “If it seems too good to be true…”
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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KPMueller.
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