u/xxskullz

Hey there! I recently posted a painting I made for $75 on Facebook Marketplace, and I received a comment from someone named “Gage” who said his sister ”Shirley” was interested in buying it from me. They then posted this phone number: 1-641–289–9465 (scammer's number). I texted the number out of curiosity, and they seemed genuinely interested in the painting, asking multiple questions and even saying they wanted to pick it up soon. After working out the details of when we would complete the transaction, a few red flags emerged. 

The first of many red flags was that they wanted me to delete the listing and accept a Zelle payment from a ”Dawn” (different name than before) before they picked up the painting. They said they wouldn’t be able to pick it up today, but instead of waiting until tomorrow, they wanted to ensure it was theirs. I only ever sold one thing on Facebook Marketplace before, and it went smoothly, so I didn’t suspect this to be much of anything at first. 

Next, they asked me for my Zelle information, which I regretfully provided. They claimed to have sent $75 to my account, which was the price of the listed painting. They followed up with a message saying that, because they have a business account, the transaction couldn’t go through because they didn’t meet the minimum business transaction amount of $500. I got a text from a seemingly legitimate phone number that imitated the Zelle support team. They called me, and a gentleman explained the situation and said they have the buyer of the painting on the other line. This was another huge red flag to me because they shouldn't know I’m selling a painting based solely on a Zelle transaction with no memo. There was also nothing in my account to reflect that the transaction had even been attempted. 

The gentleman on the phone informed me that my account would then be locked if I didn’t go through with this very weird back-and-forth transaction. They wanted the person to send me a pending transaction for $575, supposedly, then have me send $500 back to them to void the restriction and unlock my account. When I asked the gentleman to void the transaction or cancel it in some simple way, they said that it is not possible, and that the only way to go through with not having a restricted account was to accept that there is a pending transaction in my account that I cannot see, and then to send $500 to the supposed buyer of my painting. 

At this point, I became extremely suspicious: why would a bank not be able to cancel the transaction, and why on earth would they ever have anyone do all this work to avoid restrictions on their account? When I started asking the gentleman on the phone these questions, he could not provide good answers and became extremely hostile, even yelling at me several times. He threatened to completely lock my account and delete everything in it if I did not comply with his request to refund $500 to the painting buyer.   I had not received it in my account at all and didn't want to go through with this risky and sketchy transaction. 

I hung up on the gentleman and proceeded to call the individual who I was making the transaction with and said that I would prefer if we did this transaction in cash and that if I was to receive any of the money that they supposedly sent me on my Zelle that I would cancel it or refund it immediately, but that I would not be following through with any steps to send them money without first having it land in my account. After multiple text messages, I finally convinced this person, who claimed to be a woman named Shirley, to call my cell phone. 

To no one's surprise, I was met with a non-female voice practically identical to the gentleman's voice I had just gotten off the phone with. I asked them multiple times on the phone call if they were related to the individual who gave me their phone number, and they said yes. What they didn’t know is that I actually changed the name of the individual who supposedly gave me their phone number. I asked if they were related to a Greg (the person who gave me this individual's number was supposedly named Gage). Unless this person managed to forget their brother's name and magically transform into a Zelle customer support agent, I was correct about my suspicions. I informed “Shirley” that I was onto them and that their whole gimmick was a scam, to which I was promptly met with aggression and a flurry of curse words. 

TLDR: people on Facebook Marketplace are trying to scam you using a phone number and a Zelle account. I also heard from others who had seen this sort of scam that they may ask you for an email address, and “Zelle” may send you an email from a fake support address.

Fake Zelle number: +1 (646) 975-0245
Scammer’s number: +1 (641) 289-9465
Do as you wish with this info ☺️

Hi there, I have a question. I got a message from a professor about something on the document that I wrote got wrong, but then I revised the document and deleted the wrong thing and wrote the correct thing. I submitted the correct version of the paper. The professor marked a few points off the assignment for the error I deleted and revised. They require us to submit word document format. Are they able to look at the document history? This worries me because I make a lot of stupid errors often before fixing them.