Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. I just downloaded my recent Chase checking account statement and saw this message regarding Zelle.
To help protect you from fraud and scams, you’ll no longer be able to send Zelle payments to recipients originating from social media such as social media marketplaces or messaging apps
Due to the significant rise in social media scams and to help protect your account, we’ll be updating our policies on March 23, 2025, limiting your ability to send Zelle payments identified as originating from contact through social media. As a result, we may:
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- Request details about your payment’s purpose and how you made contact with the recipient
- Block or decline payments identified as originating from contact through social media
- Decline payments, restrict your use of Zelle through Chase or take other actions as described in your account agreement if you do not respond truthfully to questions we ask
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Here is the full message:
Zelle is a great tool to transfer money to friends, relatives, landlord, etc, but every week, I hear about a new Zelle scam on my local news. I am glad to see Chase doing something to reduce the number of Zelle scams, but I am not sure how Chase will be able to identify a Zelle transaction that originated with contact from social media. I would have to guess that Chase has noticed a pattern of Zelle transactions that later get reported as scams, so if they see future transactions that match that pattern, they will be able to intervene before the Zelle payment is sent (and the money is gone forever). I am much more familiar with paying people with Venmo than Zelle, but I recently made 2 Zelle transactions and there were several warning messages and verification steps to ensure I was sending money to the right person and that I was not being scammed. I predict that other large banks and credit unions that use Zelle will implement similar measures to reduce Zelle scams for their members.
If you have any questions about any of these announced changes, please leave a comment below. Have a great weekend everyone!