Zelle Scams on Facebook Marketplace: How To Recognize and Avoid Them

Divya Sharma
3 min readFeb 14, 2024

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Today technology made everything easy and convenient for users, enticing scammers to find new ways to exploit them by performing big fraud to make a hole in their pocket. One such scam has emerged on the Facebook marketplace, which is the Zelle Payment scam. Being the increasingly popular payment method Zelle is prone to scammer to prey users using unique tactics and tons of dollars are transferred to their account.

Facebook marketplace is the largest platform for scammers as Zelle is the most used payment method on it.

In this blog, we have scoured some big scams on Zelle along with the ways to avoid Facebook marketplace Zelle scams, to stay safe on Zelle.

Introduction to Zelle

Zelle Digital Payment

Zelle is a peer-to-peer payment app just like Venmo, Paypal, CashApp, etc. which enables users to send money directly from their bank account to the recipient’s bank account without any middleman. To send money, it just requires the recipient’s email address or phone number, and scammers use the seller’s email address to perform the scam.

It doesn’t have any in-app wallet, instead, it lets users transfer funds directly into the recipient’s account making it more convenient for scammers to commit fraud easily.

To acquaint you with the ongoing scams We have enlightened you on some common Facebook marketplace zelle scams, and how to avoid them in this post. Continue reading it.

1. Zelle Phishing Scams:

The straightforward payment options on Zelle make it prone to phishing scams as it is one of the most prevalent forms of online scams in which the user may receive an email or text message impersonating Zelle or other financial services and asking them to click on the link to provide their personal and banking details such as bank account details or Zelle login credentials.

Once the details are given scammers can use them to unauthorise access to your bank to transfer your money to their account. It is quite harder to spot.

How to Avoid this Scam:

  • Make sure it is the sender’s email address or phone number before providing any information or clicking the given link whether it is legitimate or not.
  • Be aware when any suspicious mail is received asking for your financial details, Zelle never asks to provide such a piece of sensitive information via email or text messages.
  • To, ensure the authenticity of the mail don’t hesitate to contact Customer support through their official website.

2. Overpayment Scams

When someone shows interest in buying your item and pays more than the price of your product or services and uses Zelle to make payment, then this might be suspicious. Initially, they paid more, saying it was done by mistake and claiming to refund the extra amount via Zelle.

Once you have refunded the excessive amount, the initial amount will be automatically canceled as it was just a fake payment. To stay protected from such a Facebook marketplace zelle scams we have some useful tips for you that you must consider before being trapped in such a fake scheme.

How to Avoid

  • It is necessary to be extra careful when dealing with strangers in online payments. Try to be assured that you are selling your goods to an authentic person.
  • Avoid taking extra amounts for your items, just take the amount as per the agreement.
  • Never refund the buyer for an extra amount before confirming the amount paid initially is legitimate.

3. Impersonation Scam using Zelle

One of the most common Facebook marketplace Zelle scams is an Impersonation scam, in which the scammers may pose as your friends or family members or a bank agent that you can trust without more queries and asking for transactions.

To make their request legitimate they use the compromised account of your known person and ask you to enter your personal bank details. Avoid sharing your bank details via email as the bank never asks for sensitive information using this way. To ensure the authenticity of the person contact with them via other means.

To delve deeper into it must visit the site Allsavvy.net once.

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Divya Sharma

Hi there, Divya this side, Welcome to my account. Check out my new blog posted here and on the All Savvy website also. Visit our website for more information.