The scam amplified the grief she still feels at the sudden, unexpected loss of her 52-year-old mother, last year.
Just days before the one-year anniversary of her mother's passing, she met her goal. But just as she was planning the surprise, the thieves struck."It was exactly the same, like a replica of the text messages Bank of America sends,'' Chavez said.
"Two minutes after I got that message the phone rang,'' she recalled. The caller ID said Bank of America. A man on the phone said someone was trying to take $3,500 from her bank account and she had to act quickly.The man said she should transfer the money through Zelle to a supposedly safe account. She should use her middle name and part of her last name to create a Zelle account, then send the money there.
The grave still sits unmarked, but for the photos of her mother, colored windmills, a patch of grass from Home Depot, and flowers the family keeps fresh each week. But no headstone. Chavez filed a claim with Bank of America, saying her money was taken by fraud. The bank denied her claim, saying she had authorized the transaction even if it was by fraud. Even if she was tricked. Even though it was a scam.Zelle is now the leading peer-to-peer payment app with $460 billion in transfers last year according to Zelle's parent company, Early Warning Systems. However, hundreds of millions of those dollars went to scammers - not friends and family.
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