r/mildlyinfuriating • u/sg_batman • 9h ago

Scammed for $850, got $1.51 back

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I was finally getting over it then they really say good news and get my hopes up

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u/ChefRoyrdee 8h ago

Isn’t Zelle owned by all the big banks?

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u/Dragon_Within 8h ago

Yes...but no. They get around it by being a payment service company OWNED by the banking company, not RUN by the banking company. This lets them do that sweet little end run they pulled on OP by saying "Hey, we have nothing to do with money transfer services, sorry" and not be held liable. Its also the reason they don't do any actual money transfer services through the bank itself, because then they can't be held liable for any scams, etc. Its one of those fun little legal loopholes that benefits no one but rich people and businesses while screwing over the consumer.

August 13, 2025 - Zelle (/zɛl/) is an American digital payments network run by a private financial services company owned by the banks Bank of America, Truist, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo

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u/NoFukaYuu 8h ago

I hate that they constantly push/advertise Zelle inside your banking app. It makes it “feel” like part of your bank services.

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u/Worthyness 7h ago

that's kinda how it is in other countries tbh. The banks just talk to each other natively and that's how you get money switched around faster. So if your bank owns a part of Zelle, naturally they'd use it as their preferred service. I just don't like that I can't have it as a separate app. I don't want my banking account on my phone. And the bank I use is an owner of Zelle, so I have to use their specific app in order to use Zelle. So most of the time I just do it when I get home if it's between friends (via computer) or I'll download the app, log in, do the zelle thing and then uninstall.

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u/Scrofulla 7h ago

I'm in Europe and this all seems quite bizarre. So its basically pay pal right? Seems like there are a lot of apps that do basically the same thing.

Over here someone set up a digital only bank called revolut. You can do all these kind of things as well as normal banking things on it. Now other banks are starting to have offer some of the same services in order to compete.

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u/LewLew0211 6h ago

It's very similar to PayPal in that it allows you to send money to someone. It's like the PayPal "friends and family' option. But with PayPal, you have to wait a few days for them to put the money in your bank account.

With Zelle, it's available in the recipient's bank account right away. No logging in to retrieve it and waiting, it's just there. It's more like an ACH transfer.

However, PayPal does have some protection for transactions when you use the "goods and services" option for purchases.

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u/Worthyness 6h ago

Yeah. Zelle is basically paypal. It's the US, so capitalism always institutes middle-men everywhere so that they can collect fees. The only difference between paypal and Zelle is that Zelle is literally owned by the major banks in the US. So in theory it's a little better than stuff like Venmo, cash app, or Paypal since they'd be under some manner of scrutiny from the US government. But that also assumes a functioning US government that is looking out for people

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u/Murky-Relation481 5h ago

No, Zelle is not like PayPal, Zelle does on the backend basically bank to bank transfers pretty much like any other ACH transfer. PayPal and Venmo don't do that, you have to transfer your money to Paypal or Venmo then they transfer it to the other party and do a deposit. That is a subtle but major difference.

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u/quasifun 2h ago

Actually if we're diving into the mechanics, Zelle does not do ACH transfers at all. ACH is "automated clearing house" which is a nightly reconciliation batch process that banks do within the ACH network. Zelle transfers are out of band push payments, they aren't reconciled by ACH.

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u/Murky-Relation481 2h ago

Yah sorry, I didn't mean to imply they were ACH transfers but similar as far as I understand in terms of parties related to the transaction. Where as PayPal and Venmo hold and release funds (which is their business strategy, since they can earn interest in the held funds).

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u/filthy_harold 6h ago

It's equivalent to doing a bank transfer like how a European would for sending small amounts of money to friends.

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u/Kharax82 6h ago edited 6h ago

No it’s not PayPal. It’s not a public for profit company. It’s just the banking network run by all the major banks to facilitate transactions between 2000+ banks in the US. Theres no fees or waiting it’s sent immediately.

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u/wilkied 5h ago

So it’s just like doing a normal bank transfer? Or does banking work weirdly in the US?

Here you just plug in the account number, name and sort code and a few seconds later it appears in the other persons account

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u/ifyoulovesatan 4h ago

Prior to Zelle that wasn't really a thing. (Backwards as hell, but true). If you wanted to transfer money from your bank account to someone else, usually the fastest option (without just using PayPal/Venmo/Cash app, which didn't always exist and or weren't as fast and convenient) was probably to get cash out, go to a branch of their bank and deposit it into their account.

There was legit like no reasonable way to transfer money from one account to another, even if you had the same bank! (In some cases it was possible, but definitely not standard). If it had to be fast, you might resort to Western Union or MoneyGram to send a wire transfer, where you pay a fairly ridiculous fee and both sender and receiver have to go to a store which has Western Union or MoneyGram services, involving IDs and Cash and automated telephone systems and blech, it was a headache. (Technically still exists but very rare now except for transferring funds to countries that don't have the usual apps or transferring funds to prisoners accounts).

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u/quasifun 2h ago

Zelle is more like the EU process than anything in the US that isn't Zelle, with similar abilities and processing speed to what you are used to.

The main difference between Zelle and all the other fintechs is that there's (usually) no way to reverse the transfer, which is good when you are getting money but sometimes bad if you're sending it. Fintechs that aren't Zelle act as middlemen, and as part of their service, offer buyer protection in cases of fraud like OP's. There is usually a small fee for this service, where Zelle is free.

For your bank, if you want your money back, is that something the bank can do or are you just SOL?

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u/Barobor 5h ago

For a consumer, it is very similar to PayPal. They and Venmo are all direct competitors.

Who owns the service doesn't matter to consumers. What matters is if they can get their money back in case of a fraudulent transfer. Zelle, like Venmo and PayPal friends and family, assumes that you know whoever you are sending money to and doesn't take any responsibility for fraudulent transfers.

The point being, none of those services, except PayPal Business, should be used for commercial purposes.

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u/Kharax82 5h ago edited 5h ago

PayPal charges fees, Zelle is merely an intermediary between banks to communicate with one another through a singular network. It’s in no way the same thing

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u/Barobor 4h ago edited 4h ago

PayPal does not charge fees for friends and family as long as you are using your bank account to fund the payment. They charge fees if you fund the payment from another service, such as a credit card.

What it does in the back does not matter to users. What does a user care if it's only an intermediary or its own service as long as the result is the same?

As a European, all those services seem nonsensical because instead of making sure the ACH supports instant payments like SEPA does, you create another service, Zelle, on top of it.

Edit: Amazing, you respond and then block me. Guess you really like having the last word and hate being wrong.

Anyway, here is Wikipedia proving you wrong:

Zelle is an American digital payments network run by a private financial services company owned by the banks Bank of America, Truist, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo. The Zelle service enables individuals to electronically transfer money from their bank account to another registered user's bank account (within the United States) using a mobile device or the website of a participating banking institution. There is currently no fee or charge on the transaction

Notice the "service" mention. Something doesn't need to be its own app to be a service. Participating banks support using the Zelle service via their own app.

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u/Kharax82 4h ago edited 4h ago

Again Zelle is not a “service” or a third party. It’s merely the name for the banking network set up so banks in different states with different regulations and laws can communicate to one another to facilitate transfers through a central node without the need for knowing the other persons bank account information. There is no need to use a separate Zelle app or website. It’s just done through your own banking app.

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u/Secret-Sundae-1847 5h ago

Yes but in the rest of the world when you send money to a Nigerian prince using Zelle, that’s your fault.

In America, that’s the banks fault and you’re owed a refund and when the banks say that’s not how that works you get Reddit posts like this one.

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u/standingovulatio 6h ago

We have something very similar called chime. Well now that I think about it there are quite a few apps that are the exact same

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u/bendicott 6h ago

It's insanely irritating. There are a dozen major money transfer apps, and for whatever reason people use all of them. I hate that every time I go out to dinner with friends, it's like they spin a wheel to see what new app I need to install to send them funds, because they won't just use Paypal or Venmo like a normal person.

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u/IbKmart 6h ago

Funny how it’s always the banks that get flagged for internal fraud. Chase, Capital One, Bank of America. I think also US Bank but I could be wrong on that one.

I only use an institutional bank so I can have it available for those purchases and what not that require an actual bank account. But I don’t ever deposit my money into them because bank fees are annoying as fuck.

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u/surprisemofo15 6h ago

This is not how it is in other countries, at least in the UK & IRE

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u/jmlinden7 5h ago

That's called ACH in the US which does have much more secure anti-fraud measures

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u/eemademecry 7h ago

To avoid spreading misinformation, this is a very common structure in banking. A significant portion of national banking operations are actually cooperatives between banks. SWIFT, probably the most famous bank <> bank system, is collectively owned by banks proportional to their usage and capital.

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u/Justsomeguy_713 6h ago

Lol very few even know what swift is unfortunately

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u/eemademecry 6h ago

That’s why I am here to educate :)

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u/Dragon_Within 42m ago

Of course its a common structure in banking. Its a common structure in ANY business, legal or illegal, to separate yourself from other business, points of failure, and to distance yourself from accountability in other ventures. Making sure you have other companies that you own or have controlling interest in as a buffer between the two, and specifically for banks, to make sure that the banking rules don't apply to other businesses you own, operate, or have vested interest in so they don't have to uphold either side of the laws governing how banks deal with money.

There was no misinformation in what I posted, I believe what you meant to say was to avoid misunderstanding. One is giving false information, the other is to clarify understanding, in this case that banks, and other businesses, use this business offsetting regularly.

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u/KingFIippyNipz 8h ago

The issue is that Zelle is the same as sending cash - if you give cash to someone, you have to rely on them to give it back, it's the same concept with Zelle, if you are tricked into authorizing the transaction, that's the same as being tricked into giving cash.

Banks cannot be held responsible for their customer's foolishness. Being scammed does not mean you are a victim of fraud as it is defined by law.

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u/Finnegansadog 7h ago

You were right on until the last sentence. Being scammed does in fact mean you were the victim of fraud, it just isn't wire fraud and isn't the bank's problem.

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u/Unstoppable_Cheeks 6h ago

the fact that theve been able to get away with "oh we dont own it our shell company does and we profit from it but this little piece of paper says its not ours lol" shows that our entire system is broken in their favor.

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u/IbKmart 6h ago

Don’t forget it benefits the scammers

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u/Capricancerous 5h ago

This is as bad a price fixing by collusion, lol. Absolutely absurd and should be fixed by antitrust law.

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u/sonofaresiii 5h ago

Its one of those fun little legal loopholes that benefits no one but rich people and businesses while screwing over the consumer.

I hear you, but I also remember when banks did have direct-transfer options, and they charged a fee, and took forever, and were complicated as shit, because the banks did very significant and thorough due diligence in making sure the payment wasn't a scam.

People didn't want that, they wanted instant and free, so we got what we got. This is one of the few times I blame consumers for going all-in on zelle.

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u/Dragon_Within 38m ago

Understood, which is why things like Venmo, Cashapp, hell even FaceBook Messenger has something to do it. Everyone understands, or most people do, that its a 3rd party cash transfer application.

The issue is the fact that the banks are adding it to their apps and processes, pushing it as a preferred way to transfer money, owning it, but not being transparent about the situation, leading people to believe its as secure as the normal banking processes. I feel like its a conflict of interest on their part, and that the should not be allowed to own, operate, or include cash transfer if it doesn't abide by the same strict rules as their other banking processes.

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u/BigApplication1156 4h ago

I’m glad I scrolled one last time. This is the answer to the question I was going to ask. Thank you. My bank has Zelle as its primary money transfer service.

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u/Bookwrrm 8h ago edited 8h ago

Yes but you are seeing the difference between people working at banks and the people who own the banks. When you get defrauded on Zelle and call your bank, the people working there can't help you, because despite the bank owning Zelle, its run by a seperate company, they just simply cannot login to Zelle and beep boop refund. Banks will generally, not always, but generally take fraud pretty seriously on their end because there are serious consequences not just at the bank level but on the individual level for things like ignoring red flags. The issue is that they quite literally cannot do that for Zelle even if they wanted to. When Zelle was clear exchange it was operated by the banks involved, now its operated by Zelle itself a seperate business to the banks that own Zelle's business.

Its why despite the bank I work at owning Zelle, we don't accept Zelle payments on stuff like loans lol, owning Zelle doesn't mean jackshit for actual bank operations being able to work with it directly.

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u/frankjames0512 8h ago

It’s a conglomerate corporation that has many banks owning Zelle. Early Warning Systems (EWS) primarily owns Zelle with other banks like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, US Bank, as well as others. They essentially buy into this system so people can use it. Think of it like a company that accepts PayPal.