Zelle Phishing Scam on Facebook Marketplace

I wanted to go running but then I got approached by a scammer and got this unique opportunity to be a troll AND write about it.

But let’s dive in. In this article I will explain with screenshots how this Zelle phishing scam works, how to recognize the scammers (spoiler: they’re super overt) and give you resources to report them so less people fall victim to cyber crime.

The Context

Generally speaking, 6 in 10 Americans, or roughly 60%, couldn’t identify a fraudulent website in 2019, with phishing having almost 250,000 yearly victims, while FBI’s annual Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) report puts cybercrimes costs (phishing, scam, and personal data breach) at 7 Billion in 2021.

The Scam

If you’ve landed on this page, chances are you already know what Zelle is (US based digital payment owned by banks like Bank of America and Capital One) so I won’t go into how that works. Also, my interaction with the scammers has been on Facebook Marketplace, but I’m sure they’re targeting other marketplaces for electronics. Electronics is my assumption, because the price needs to be high enough to justify the back and forth.

I was selling my old (*wink* but in perfect condition *wink*) MacBook Pro, and got approached by someone asking a couple of questions, then immediately moving to a deal. They said they can’t pick up, but they’ll send their son the next day (Sunday), then asked for my Zelle to make the payment, saying…