Zelle Yourself has fraudsters conning members into transferring funds via Zelle to themselves using the members’ own mobile phone number under the guise that it will replace funds stolen from their account; however, the fraudsters receive the transfers.
How It Works
- Fraudsters sends text alert to members - appearing to come from the credit union - asking the members if they attempted a large dollar Zelle transfer.
- Fraudsters immediately call those members – spoofing the credit union’s phone number – who respond ‘NO’ and claim to be from the credit union’s fraud department.
- Fraudsters tell the members the Zelle transfers went through, but the funds can be recovered.
- Fraudsters tell the members in order to recover the stolen funds they must use Zelle to transfer the funds to themselves using their own mobile phone number. Note: The fraudsters previously established their own Zelle account and may have opened an account at the credit union to do so. Members are conned into disabling their mobile phone number associated with their Zelle account. The fraudsters link the members’ mobile phone numbers to the fraudsters Zelle accounts.
- The transfers actually go to the fraudsters.