(WXYZ) — Scammers are taking advantage of people who may need money in these tough economic times. A Sterling Heights woman reached out to me after losing $3,000 trying to sell a $40 table online.
Watch Alicia's report in the video player below
Her story is one of two scams circulating right now – one called the "payment on hold" scam and the other about an "unclaimed fund" scam that's blowing up across the country.
Tracie Block, of Sterling Heights, was pleased when someone offered to buy her kitchen table and chairs from Facebook Marketplace.
The scammer, who went by Daffne, asked for her email address and phone number, explaining she'd transfer the payment through Zelle.
Then, Block received an email claiming to be from Zelle Pay with the address ZelleOnlinePayNotice@gmail.com. The subject line, in all caps, read, "CALL US TO VERIFY THIS ZELLE PAYMENT IMMEDIATELY."
In the body of the message, in bold were the words "Payment on hold," followed by a highlighted phone number listed three separate times that Tracie would need to call to remove the hold on the payment.
"That's when I reached the impersonator that I didn't know was a Zelle impersonator," she said.
The scammer told Tracie that in order to receive the buyer's payment of $100, and refund the buyer the $60 they overpaid, they'd have to verify her account, which would require her to first send them the money that they would supposedly refund later.
"How much money did you end up losing?" I asked.
"I lost so far, a thousand through Zelle and $2,000 through Apple Cash," she said.
She was about to send even more money when her bank stopped the transactions, citing fraud.
"How concerned are you by these most recent scam reports on refunds or unclaimed funds?" I asked Nakia Mills, with the Better Business Bureau of Michigan.
"Well, the big issue I see that concerns me is scammers are so good at tapping into our emotions," she said.
"People were getting a voice message from someone named Dan. Every time it was someone named Dan. And he said that they had approximately $5,286 in unclaimed funds, and they just needed to go to myreliefcheck.com. And then once they go there, it was automatically a re-direct. It told them it was redirecting these people to a government site to claim the funds. But really it was just a my check search type of site," Mills said.
I typed in the website and found a "My Cash Search" site with the banner "Claim all funds owed to you!" But you have to enter your zip code and hit the submit bar, which Mills says takes you down a rabbit hole where you're asked to type in your personal information, which scammers can then use to steal your identity.
"Any time you are contacted and told that you have some sort of refund or any money claimed, the safest best thing you can do, [is] contact the business directly. Don't use the phone numbers that they give you. Don't click on the links that they give you. We live in a world now where, sadly, you have to verify everything, and you can't trust the sender," Mills said.
If you think you've been targeted in a banking imposter or payment on hold scam, notify the payment platform, contact your bank and immediately file a complaint with the BBB and Internet Crime Complaint Center.
A common thread with these two scams is that they underscore that you won't get your money unless you follow their instructions, whether it's transferring some cash to be refunded later, or giving all your personal or financial information to them.
