Zelle Enlists Star Power in a Fraud Awareness Campaign

Zelle, the peer-to-peer payments service from Early Warning Services LLC, will put the detective powers of its S.A.F.E. Squad to work again with the help of actor Christina Ricci in a new education campaign on fraud and scams. This is the second year of the campaign and Ricci’s participation.

This year’s focus is on more complex crimes, such as those using artificial intelligence. The two episodes set for this season tackle crimes such as phishing emails, with the first titled “The Star Phish” about a phishing threat, and the second called “One Sick Puppy,” which shows how criminals use AI to impersonate a legitimate seller to defraud a victim.

“The new S.A.F.E. Squad campaign comes as Americans are facing an increasing threat of scams and fraud from tech-savvy financial criminals. By teaming up with Christina Ricci, we hope to use her celebrity to help educate as many people as possible about payment safety during the holiday season and beyond,” Andrea Gilman, Zelle’s chief marketing officer, tells Digital Transactions News via email. “Making financial education more entertaining and engaging has proven to be an effective awareness-building strategy. In fact, we were able to reach over 40 million American consumers last year as a result of our education efforts.”

The message might be getting through to many consumers, as Gilman says while Zelle volume increased 28% from 2022 to 2023, “we saw a nearly 50% decrease in reports of fraud and scam payments. Last year, we processed 99.95% of payments without a report of fraud or scams, making Zelle one of the safest ways for consumers to pay people they know and trust.”

Among the top fraud-prevention tips are for consumers to avoid phishing emails and scams, use multifactor authentication to boost the security of online services, and to be aware that criminals often use pressure to act urgently, a tactic consumers should consider a red flag.

Gilman says Zelle sent 700 million in-app alerts in 2023 to warn users of possible scams and has consumer-education campaigns running with the Better Business Bureau, the National Council on Aging, Utilities United Against Scams, and Vox Media, which produced the S.A.F.E. Squad video. The series is available on a special page on Vox.com and on Vox’s YouTube channel.

Zelle is available as a standalone app, though many consumers use it via a participating bank’s app. Many of these financial institutions—more than 2,200 banks and credit unions are on the Zelle network—also have their own education programs.

Early Warning reported in October that volume on the Zelle network rose 28% year-over-year in the first half of 2024, reaching $481 billion. Transactions totaled 1.7 billion, up 27%, while the user base climbed 13.5% to 143 million.