When shopping online for your Christmas gifts this holiday season, we want you to be aware of the scammers that plague the internet. They will do anything they can to steal your money, including coming up with fake websites and too-good-to-be-true deals that will lure almost anyone into their suspicious online stores. Once the customer goes onto the site and witnesses these offers that are impossible to pass up, they can’t possibly say no to the product and purchase, not aware that a scammer is behind the sale. Here are some more mobile payment app scams to be aware of this holiday season.

Holiday Mobile Payment App Scams to Watch Out For

Zelle Scams

This holiday season, watch out for scammers using your Zelle account to your advantage. A lot of these scammers will sell something on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist and ask for a Zelle transfer in order to purchase the product. A lot of the times, the scammer will make an excuse as to why you can’t see the item in person first and will promise to deliver it to you once you pay them, but end up scamming you out of money instead. There are also instances where they give you a product that looks like it’s in good condition, but once you pay for it and try it out it ends up being broken.

Another Zelle scam to watch out for is when a scammer calls you, pretending to be your bank. The scammer claims that your account has been hacked, and needs you to read them a code sent to your phone in order to verify that it’s actually you. Once you read them the code, they can use this code to hack into your Zelle account and steal your funds.

CashApp Scams

During the holidays, scammers might trick holiday shoppers into believing that they can actually flip their money for a larger amount. This scam works by messaging their victims, inviting them to earn two- ten times the amount that they currently have! All they need to do is send the scammer the requested money via CashApp and they will supposedly flip your money within minutes! Except for the fact that they won’t and they will keep your money for themselves.

Another one of many mobile payment app scams to watch out for during the holidays is the fake CashApp giveaways. While CashApp’s official Twitter account does legit giveaways called #CashAppFriday, there are many fake Twitter accounts that try to pose as CashApp that pretend to be doing the same giveaway. They will then message their victims that participate in the false giveaway, claiming that they won a lot of money. They claim that in order to receive the money, the victim needs to “verify” that they are real by sending the scammer a “small amount of what you won.” Once they receive this from you, they block you and you never see the money you supposedly won.

Venmo Scams

One scam that scammers will take advantage of this holiday season requires stealing your credit card and putting it on their Venmo account. How this works is scammers will either find your lost credit card or use a skimmer to steal the credit card numbers off of your card. Then, they enter your information on their Venmo account and steal the money off of your credit card. They then transfer this money into their actual bank account.

There are scammers that can also hack into your Venmo account and use it as their own. They can use it to make purchases or send money to themselves without you knowing until it is too late. They might even use it to buy whatever they want using your money.

PayPal Scams

Ho Ho Ho, Scammer Clause is here trying to use fake charities as a way to take advantage of your PayPal account. Scammers call you pretending to be your favorite holiday charity that you usually donate to. They let you know that you can use your PayPal account this year due to the coronavirus to donate your money for charity. However, once you send the money over to the so-called charity, the scammer hangs up on your call and you never see your money again.

This scammer is going to send you a large Christmas gift supposedly! All you need to do is send them a small fee, legal documents, or verify your identity in order to get the gift they promised. However, once you send them your PayPal information or personal information, they block you. They can then use your personal information to commit identity fraud, and steal all the money from your PayPal account.

How to Avoid Mobile Payment App Scams

• Don’t give anyone any money for any reason.
• Never give out your personal information to anyone you don’t know.
• If any of your mobile payment app accounts are hacked, report it.
• Call your credit card company and report it if you feel like someone is using your credit card.
• If there is a giveaway from a mobile payment app’s social media account, make sure they have a verified checkmark before participating.
• Test out the product in person before paying someone for it.
• If your bank calls you randomly, hang up on them, and call their official number back to verify that it was actually your bank calling.
  • Scam Fact: Scammers can spoof Caller ID’s to make them look real.

Social Catfish is Here to Help You with Your Mobile Payment App Scams!

At Social Catfish, we want to help you verify the identities of those who might seem suspicious to you and find those lost connections that you are looking for. If you have their name, email address, phone number, social media username, or image, you can reverse search and see who the suspected person was that you’ve been in contact with if you are a victim of mobile payment app scams.

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