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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

Most of the article was pretty good up until the close:

And as word gets around that Zelle and the banks are not helping people who were scammed, it will ultimately damage Zelle’s reputation and send users back to PayPal, where buyer protections exist.

This isn't "damaging" Zelle's reputation - you should never use Zelle (or Venmo) for this type of transaction. Asking your bank to "help" is like asking the US government for a refund when you mail an envelope full of cash to some anonymous person.

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On one of Zelle's site pages, it states: "EASY. FAST.SAFE. DONE. Forget running to the ATM or mailing a check. With Zelle, there’s a new way to move money. Backed by the nation’s leading banks and credit unions, you can send and receive money with peace of mind and without the hassle."

So, two problems here. It's not "safe." It safely arrives at its destination, but for most people, a safe money transaction is one that's protected from fraud somehow, which this is not. And it's not "backed" by banks so much as it is backed by your bank account. Again, backed by banks sounds like fraud protection. I don't think there's anything wrong with Zelle. It sounds like a useful service. But unless they are sanguine about these kinds of problems occurring then they ought to make it very clear to not send Zelle to a destination you don't 100% trust. That the only guarantee here is for guaranteed delivery of your cash and nothing else. So that's not quite the same as mailing an envelope of cash, which I know from personal experience as a lad is inherently unsafe even if the destination is your best friend's house.

But none of those other things (ATM, checking account) are protected from fraud when you initiate the transaction either? And it must be said of checks that they are "backed by banks." I agree Zelle should do MUCH more to tell customers that they shouldn't send money to strangers.

Your comment makes me want to argue both sides. It does should like they are offering more than the other payment methods, but the idea that a company should "tell customers that they shouldn't send money to strangers" really cracks me up. That seems like something you should learn before you are old enough to have a bank account.

You send money to strangers every time you buy something online and most of the time you buy something in a store.

If you use a credit card - you instead instruct your credit card company to initiate a transaction with them - and, if you aren't happy, you file a chargeback and then it's on the vendor to prove that they fulfilled their end of the deal.

I've filed about 5 or 6 chargebacks, and, with the exception of a gym membership, (which, admittedly, did have a contract from me stating I would send them a request via registered mail to quit) I've always been successful.

I see you've not yet discovered Souvenir Checks Kid.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3cd6oj/im_in_h...

Funny story, but you are right. I've never given a souvenir check. It's been a long time since I was a kid.

Safe in the sense that me sending money doesn't expose my bank account to being ripped off. We have a huge problem in the office right now in that we don't have any mechanism to pay each other digitally for things like lunch - seriously! A lot of the office feels really weird about giving their banking credentials to Venmo (even though it's pretty popular here in Ann Arbor, MI) and a bunch of people think paypal is shady (I use both of them, but I'm probably a little more open to risk).

Zelle sounds like it will be exactly what we've been looking for - a safe way to send cash to each other, with the exact same risk profile of cash - that is, I give you my cash, and you have my cash, but nothing else.

I 100% agree with you though, that the banks need to make it clear that this is to be used to send money to friends, and family - not strangers - unless you are okay with strangers just taking your cash. Poor communication on their part.

> We have a huge problem in the office right now in that we don't have any mechanism to pay each other digitally for things like lunch - seriously

Apple Pay in iMessage makes this laughably easy and secure.

3 iPhone users in the office - everyone else is an Android user.

Off the top of my head:

- Google Wallet

- Square Cash (now "Cash App")

- Venmo (blegh. Owned by PayPal)

The first two allow you to send and receive money via a debit card, no direct banking info needed. I've never used Venmo but I imagine it's the same.

Facebook has a similar way to send money, no idea how that one works. Google Wallet funds can be sent via Gmail.

The apps auto deposit money. Square takes a bit longer unless you pay them.

I spent the better part of a week trying to get google cash working - submitted passport, utility bills - they kept claiming my passport picture wasn't clear enough. Eventually I gave up and just used paper cash - which is what we, a pretty much 100% highly technical office, use to pay each other.

I love venmo - it's worked well for me. And I use Apple pay multiple times a day, every day. And been a PayPal user for 15 years - but no common thread with colleagues in the office. We just need something that we can be certain everyone can use. Zelle might be that thing.

In a similar anecdote, all 32 members of my law school section use Venmo to submit section dues and dispurse refunds from those dues when someone hosts a gathering, etc. A large group of non-technical users signed up without blinking.

Square Cash works very well.

You can use Venmo with a debit card, instead of bank credentials.

> We have a huge problem in the office right now in that we don't have any mechanism to pay each other digitally for things like lunch - seriously!

Have you considered running an internal credit system? Those who pay for other's shares of a given lunch get credits for those, and those whose lunch is paid for get debits.

When a group of people go to lunch, the person with the persons with high debt should pick up the tab.

Once a week or once a month or something, people should bring cash to settle their debt, with the cash then distributed to those with credit.

We almost did that at an office I worked at...but got bogged down in bikeshedding other features. In particular, our biggest lunch problem was not settling the bill. It was agreeing where to go to lunch. So some people wanted the lunch manager to also handle that, and wanted to do it in a way that was fair.

How to do it fair is not obvious, and no one could agree on the solution.

We used splitwise to do this at work for while. Its designed for splitting roommate expenses, but ended up working pretty well for accounting for who should pay for the next lunch.

When someone would leave the company we would settle up with cash.

> Asking your bank to "help" is like asking the US government for a refund when you mail an envelope full of cash to some anonymous person.

This is actually what you should do: go to the police because someone committed fraud.

As someone not from the US I’m also a bit shocked that banks in the us don’t care that their bank accounts are abused for fraud.

But it isn't fraud - you sent them cash. The end. You can take them to small claims court if they failed to fulfill a contract, but there are a lot of reasons why a person won't, or can't fulfill their end of the bargain other than criminal fraud.

This is why credit cards are awesome for this sort of thing - chargebacks.

The police literally do not help with this sort of scam unless the amount is big enough to matter. People run scams like this all the time on craigslist, whether it's for tickets or apartment rentals or whatever. It's so common that police simply don't have the resources to chase them down, and if you call to file a complaint sometimes they'll tell you not to bother.

I previously ran across a scam like this while apartment hunting, and ended up contacting the local police along with the scammer's bank. Neither of them were willing to do anything about it so I left it be. Hopefully they didn't get anyone's money, but they probably did...

This. I wish people realize settlement times etc. exist not because banks are slow.

Exactly. Glad this irreversible transaction exists. Paypal doesn't serve all needs.

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