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Jan 22, 2024

Teen was saving for a fishing boat. Then he lost $500 in a Zelle scam.

Troy Conover was scammed out of $500 using Zelle when he tried to sell a

Troy Conover was scammed out of $500 using Zelle when he tried to sell a computer to raise money to purchase a boat. He said banks should offer more protections for minors. (Courtesy Troy Conover)

Troy Conover and his friends are pretty resourceful.

The three teens had a goal for this summer: To earn enough money — about $1,000 — to buy a small fishing boat that together, they would share, maintain and store for the off-season.

"We have all done some side hustles, like refereeing hockey games, mowing lawns, getting birthday money," said Conover, 14, of Westfield. He also set aside what he called "generous" gifts from his eighth grade graduation to use towards the vessel.

Looking for other ways to earn a buck, he listed a computer for sale on Facebook.

That's how he got fooled in a Zelle scam involving his Bank of America checking account. His mother said it is a joint account because he is a minor.

Zelle is a money transfer service run by Early Warning Systems, a company created by several of the nation's largest banks, including Bank of America. Zelle handled more than $490 billion in transactions in 2021, doubling its nearest competitor, Venmo. And in 2020, nearly 18 million Americans were defrauded in scams involving money transfer apps like Zelle, according to Javelin Strategy & Research.

When he put his computer online for sale, Conover said he found a buyer willing to pay the $500 price tag on Aug. 3.

Soon after, he received an email from [email protected], which was supposedly from Zelle but it was actually from the con artist. (Our messages sent to that email were returned as undeliverable.) The email told Conover that Zelle was unable to accept the money sent to him from the alleged buyer because of a limit on Conover's bank account.

"We place initial limits on all accounts to increase the security precaution and help prevent any fraudulent activities," the email explained. "An alert has been sent to the buyer in regards to the $500.00 USD additional payment he has to send you, we will secure this transaction with high priority where by the buyer nor the seller will lose a dime."

Conover said he called Bank of America and it increased his transaction limit.

The huckster's email told Conover to send the $500 — the money that never hit his account — to the buyer of the computer.

Not yet realizing it was a scam, Conover Zelled the money.

"Then I got another email from the fake Zelle account saying that I needed to pay a $200 fee. Following that, I needed to pay a $400 fee," Conover said, and he did it.

But in moments, he said, he realized he was being scammed and he asked his dad for help.

"The $500 payment went through, but the $400 and $200 were still pending," he said, so those two payments ultimately didn't go through. "The bank told us that we should call the fraud department and we did. They told us they couldn't get the $500 back but they were going to investigate it."

That wasn't good enough for Conover, so he wrote a letter to Bank of America CEO Brian Thomas Moynihan.

"I am asking Bank of America to protect other kids like me from scams. I think there should be a parent approval before any money can be transferred through Zelle — it is too easy just to send money to anyone without any approval," Conover wrote.

Then Conover asked Bamboozled for help.

THE SCAMS CONTINUE

While we don't yet have data about Zelle scams in 2022, anecdotally, we’re hearing from more and more readers who were scammed, or who were almost scammed.

Few have been able to get their money back.

That's because banks typically say Zelle is not covered by Regulation E, a federal law that covers electronic transfers. They argue they’re not responsible because the scam transactions are not technically unauthorized, even if the account owner was tricked into making the transfer.

We asked Bank of America to review the case.

Two days later, Troy Conover's mom Susan got a call with news that Bank of America was returning the $500.

"They said please talk to him about not using Zelle with strangers," she said.

Troy Conover said he was shocked to learn he was getting the money back. He said his parents had previously warned him not to send money to anyone online, and he still believes banks should have more protections for minors.

Bank of America said it was still investigating the case when we asked it for a review and it was "thankful" it could "recover the funds" from the receiving bank.

The bank would not ask a customer to transfer funds to prevent a fraudulent transaction, spokesman Bill Halldin said.

"We alert clients during the transaction if they are sending money to a new recipient that they should only send to people they know and trust and never transfer money as a result of an unexpected call or text," he said, noting that the bank warns customers of just that as they initiate a Zelle transaction and they have to click "OK" to proceed.

A screenshot of the warning Bank of America gives to customers before they finalize a Zelle transaction.

Customers can learn more about new scams on its website.

"A lesson learned from this whole thing is to never trust anyone online and especially don't give them money, no matter how real or legitimate they might look," Conover said. "I thought I could spot a scam email but the emails I got looked very real."

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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @KPMueller.

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