Zelle Scam Warning

There is a consumer warning about a scheme involving Zelle®. Scammers are fooling consumers into using Zelle to transfer them money, resulting in lost funds.

Victims will receive an unexpected message from, what appears to be, their financial institution regarding a Zelle payment. After responding "No", they will receive a call that appears to be from their financial institution. They will inform the victim that someone has transferred the victim's money. In order to retrieve the money back, they must Zelle themselves back the money.

Scammers are using caller ID spoofing to disguise themselves as a caller from your financial institution. They want to gain access to personal account information to steal money. Here are tips on how to avoid a spoofing attack and what to do if it happens to you:

• Provident Credit Union will never contact you to ask you to verify your account and security information.
• Provident will never contact you to ask you to use Zelle to transfer yourself funds.
• Scammers may contact you via phone, email, or text message representing themselves as a Provident employee. If they ask for personal or security information, you should hang up immediately and ignore the message. This may include account password, PIN, mother’s maiden name, date of birth, social security number, or other personal information.
• Do not reply to or provide the code to someone representing themselves as a Provident employee. This is an attempt to defraud you and gain access to your mobile payment account.
• Do not allow 3rd parties, whom you do not trust or know, access to your computer via a screen sharing.
• Do not provide your online banking credentials to anyone.
• If you are contacted by someone representing themselves as a Provident employee, ignore the message or hang up immediately. When in doubt, contact Provident directly at (800) 632-4600 to confirm. Do not rely on any contact information provided in the potentially fraudulent messages.

For more resources and tips for safe payments using Zelle, please visit Zelle's website.