{“lastseen”:”2025-09-22T20:50:36″,”description”:”As we have said many times before, falling for a scam can happen to the best of us. And it can ruin lives. In our podcast How a scam hunter got scammed, scam hunter Julie-Anne Kearns talked about how she had been duped by people pretending to be from HMRC, which is the UK\u2019s version of the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).\\n\\nThis week in the New York Times crime reporter Michael Wilson, who has covered many scams during his career, almost fell for a scam that used a spoofed telephone number from Chase Bank. Michael\u2019s story sounded vaguely familiar to us because we reported about something similar back in 2022.\\n\\nThe scam is a prime example of how social engineering is used to talk victims out of their money.\\n\\nMichael received a call, seemingly from a Chase bank branch. The caller even invited him to Google the number and pointed out which branch he was \u201ccalling from.\u201d The scammer claimed that fraudulent Zelle transfers had been made to and from a bank account in his name, even though Michael had never opened an account with Chase.\\n\\nThe initial scammer gave Michael a case number and put him through to \u201chis supervisor.\u201d This man asked Michael to open Zelle.\\n\\nZelle is a popular US peer-to-peer payment service that allows users to send and receive money quickly and securely directly from their bank accounts using just an email address or mobile phone number.\\n\\nWhere it says, \u201cEnter an amount,\u201d the \\”supervisor\\” instructed him to type $2,100, the amount of the withdrawals he said he was going to help reverse. In another field the scammer wanted Michael to enter the 10 digits of the case number. This triggered Michael\u2019s spidey senses\u2014it looked suspiciously like a phone number:\\n\\n\\u003e \u201cThis case number sure looks like a phone number, and I\u2019m about to send that number $2,100.\u201d\\n\\n\\n\\nAt that point the scammer gave him a 19 character code to put in the \u201cWhat\u2019s this for?\u201d field, telling Michael it was needed for his team to be able to reverse the transaction.\\n\\nBut that didn\u2019t calm down the spidey senses and Michael asked the question that will scare most scammers away. He proposed to meet in person and settle this. The scammer tried to persuade him by saying it might be too late by then, but Michael persisted and said he\u2019d call back.\\n\\nOnly then did he realize the scammers had him on the hook for 16 minutes before he managed to break free.\\n\\n\\u003e \u201cI should be able to spot a scam in under 16 seconds, I thought \u2014 but 16 minutes?\u201d\\n\\nMichael found that several others had been approached in the very same way. The \u201csupervisor\u201d is an element that provides legitimacy to the call and makes people feel like they\u2019re talking to actual bank employees.\\n\\nAnd once they have you filling out forms and writing down long codes, they have turned you from a critical thinker into a person with a mission to fulfil.\\n\\nFor completeness\u2019 sake, Michael went to the bank office and asked for the two employees he\u2019d allegedly spoken to. No surprise they didn\u2019t work there, but someone who did work there recognized the scam and said she\u2019d heard the story many times before and actually knew about a few people that lost money to these scammers.\\n\\n## How to avoid Zelle scams\\n\\nThere\u2019s several aspects of this attack common to many others which may indicate a fraud attempt.\\n\\n * **They don\u2019t want you to call the bank back**. If you do this, the scam falls apart because their number is spoofed. A genuine member of staff would have no issue with you calling them.\\n * **Pressure tactics**. If a bank calls you out of the blue and claims that they\u2019re powerless to stop something without your assistance, be very cautious. Is your bank really unable to perform a basic banking action?\\n * **Knowing your date of birth** , address, and other information doesn\u2019t mean the caller is genuine. They may have obtained the data from a phish, or a security breach.\\n * **Referencing third party payment apps** may be another red flag, especially if they talk about a platform you\u2019ve not used before.\\n\\n\\n\\nZelle transfers are instantaneous and almost impossible to reverse. And neither banks nor Zelle are liable for fraudulent payments, so a refund is highly unlikely. So, be extra careful when using Zelle.\\n\\nDid you know, you can use Malwarebytes Scam Guard for this kind of situation as well? We tested Scam Guard with some details from the NYT story and it correctly identified it as a known scam, asked some follow up questions, and provided a clear set of recommendations. \\n\\n* * *\\n\\n**We don ‘t just report on scams\u2014we help detect them**\\n\\nCybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard, a feature of our mobile protection products. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a text or phone number, and we\u2019ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Download Malwarebytes Mobile Security for iOS or Android and try it today!”,”published”:”2025-09-22T14:43:39″,”modified”:”2025-09-22T14:43:39″,”type”:”malwarebytes”,”title”:”Beware of Zelle transfer scams”,”source”:””,”references”:””,”id”:”MALWAREBYTES:A5B45125C00E7B8CAEB905535D18B254″,”bulletinFamily”:”blog”,”cwe”:null,”cvelist”:[],”sourceData”:””,”sourceHref”:””,”cvss”:{“score”:0,”severity”:”NONE”,”vector”:”NONE”,”version”:”NONE”},”cvss2″:{},”cvss3″:{“version”:””,”vectorString”:””,”baseScore”:0,”baseSeverity”:””,”attackVector”:””,”attackComplexity”:””,”privilegesRequired”:””,”userInteraction”:””,”scope”:””,”confidentialityImpact”:””,”integrityImpact”:””,”availabilityImpact”:””,”cvssV3″:{“version”:””,”vectorString”:””,”baseScore”:0,”baseSeverity”:””,”attackVector”:””,”attackComplexity”:””,”privilegesRequired”:””,”userInteraction”:””,”scope”:””,”confidentialityImpact”:””,”integrityImpact”:””,”availabilityImpact”:””}},”href”:”https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/blog\/news\/2025\/09\/beware-of-zelle-transfer-scams”,”category_name”:”News”,”post_link”:””,”product”:””,”version”:””,”vendor”:””,”ai_description”:””,”ai_severity”:””,”ai_vendor”:””,”ai_product”:””,”ai_version”:””,”ai_score”:0}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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