This may be a Wells Fargo only issue, but I’ll tell you what happened to me anyway. I had a friend who owed me some money and I told her to Zelle me through her local CU. This was the first time she used Zelle at the CU. She sent the first $2K just fine even though she got an FA from her bank. She called them up to clear it. Then a week later, she sent another $2K from the same bank. Her bank then called her up again putting a FA on it. She cleared it once again. During this time, I had all $4K accessible in my WF account. Then a few weeks later, I get this:
I then had my friend call her local CU to see what’s up. She said that she doesn’t have the $4K back. The bank then said it may take Zelle up to 30 days to re-deposit her money back to her. As you can see, we’re near 30 days already and the money is still in limbo. So whatever, we expect to get that money back.
Fast forward a month later, over this weekend, I couldn’t log into my WF account. I called WF and they redirected me to the fraud / online team who then asked me about the two transactions, asking if I knew the person and what the payments were for, if I had been hacked, etc. After a few min, she then restored my account access.
I’m sure in the end, we’ll get our $4K back from Zelle, but man, what a pain in the butt. And it wasn’t even a “real” chargeback either; it was just an overzealous bank who THOUGHT it was fraud even though she told them it wasn’t. I told her to stick to Venmo going forward. And this is also why you should NOT do Zelle for in person transactions.
Everything can be charged back. Cash is the only solution. Certified check will do, but you need to be at the bank and actually see it issued to prevent forgeries. Obviously this is for large amounts, otherwise while you’re in the bank you’d withdraw the needed cash.
paypal has the same /similar issue
Don’t do Zelle….PERIOD
Way too easy to hack.
But can’t Venmo transactions be reversed the same way?
yes, but this article was about ZELLE, not venmo