ORLANDO, Fla. – News 6 viewer Loucinda Curtis is warning consumers to be on the lookout for Facebook Marketplace imposters after she was contacted by someone telling her to upgrade a Zelle account to receive her payment.
Curtis told News 6 a man claimed to be interested in purchasing a sofa and love seat she had posted on Facebook Marketplace, but the transaction quickly turned into a social media con game using Zelle as the bait.
“He said he couldn’t pick it up himself, he would send his son,” Curtis told News 6.
The retired pharmacy technician said the man claimed he had sent the $200 asking price to her Zelle account.
Within minutes, she received an email that appeared to be from Zelle advising her to pay $300 for a Zelle business account upgrade to “receive unlimited access to any amount of money from now on.”
The email sent on Dec. 21 showed a payment of $200, an account upgrade fee of $300 and finally a total amount of $500.
Curtis told News 6 her bank confirmed, “The money was never credited to the account.”
The thing is, Zelle does not have a business account. In fact, the company has issued a scam alert on its web site Zellepay.com with this warning: ”The only domain extension used by Zelle® is @Zelle.com or @Zellepay.com. Zelle® does not use <@gmail.com> or any other domain such as <@aol.com>, <@yahoo.com>, or any other common email domain. Even if the profile picture has a Zelle® logo, this doesn’t automatically mean the email is legitimate.”
“When I tried to put his name in Zelle by his phone number, it came up with a different name,” Curtis said.
Once she declined to pay for the upgrade, the imposter sent a badly written message threatening FBI action.
Zelle suggests that if you have received a suspicious email you should:
- Report the fake email to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov
- Forward the fake email to the Anti-Phishing Working Group at reportphishing@apwg.org
- If you got a fake text message, forward it to SPAM (7726)
Curtis said her purpose in going public is simple: “I don’t want other people scammed out of money.”
According to an investigation led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other lawmakers, Zelle users lost roughly $440 million to various types of fraud in 2021 alone.
If you have been contacted by an imposter on Facebook Marketplace, email makeendsmeet@wkmg.com or text the words “make ends meet” at 407-676-7428.
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