One woman says she never realized it was happening to her.
“I could not believe that I got scammed. I just could not believe it.,” admitted Lura Ball. “I was so ashamed.”
She says it all started when she received a text on her phone that appeared to come from Bank of America.
“I usually just ignore those, and I get a phone call from Bank of America small business saying the saying there are several fraud attempts,” said Ball.
As it turns out the text and call were from a scammer. It’s called spoofing where scammers can change the number that shows on Caller ID to trick you.
They asked her to use Zelle, a service that banks use where customers can send and receive money. All together she lost $18,500 dollars.
“All of a sudden I started getting alerts from one of my other emails saying that I had transferred money to a Chase account and I said ‘what?'” Ball explained.
Ball had just received a loan to start her cookie business called Lura’s Kitchen. She says she is now struggling to pay for items on credit cards. Ball says Bank of America denied her claim twice.
Some worry Zelle is convenient but once the money goes out there’s little you can do to get it back in a case of fraud.
Jamie Court from Consumer Watchdog says banks “throw up their hands and say ‘it’s not our problem because you authenticated it.'”
“That’s not good enough….
