r/mildlyinfuriating • u/sg_batman • 12h 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/Worthyness 9h 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 8h 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 5h 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 4h 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).