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Ask HN: How Does Zelle Work?
13 points by michaelrkn on Nov 3, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 10 comments
I'm curious: Does it use ACH behind the scenes? The RTP network? Some other system? Thanks to anybody who can satisfy my curiosity!



Advice: Avoid paying via Zelle. At $Job, we are a long-time customer of one of the large banks which owns Zelle. Said bank told us to avoid paying for anything via Zelle, unless we had very clear & easy legal recourse in case of fraud. The did not quite say "Zelle is only a better payment solution if you are cheating people"...but they came fairly close.


Can you elaborate on what kinds of fraud? Like for ex. someone can transfer money from your account, or impersonating someone else, etc?


You buy something online and pay with Zelle. Seller never ships it. You have zero recourse, there’s no chargebacks or anything like that, your money is gone. It’s the same as cash, and you should only use it with people you know. Same with Venmo, and cashapp


This. Or they ship you something that is defective, worth far less, etc., etc.


Is this because there is no clawbacks or something of that nature?


Depends on the implementation. Initially used ACH for settlement and now they are moving towards RTP. (https://www.earlywarning.com/press-release/early-warning-ser...)


Thank you!


The banks just venmo each other afterwards to settle up.


patio11 could probably write an entire essay on this. (In fact, he might have, just not named it as such.)


Someday!




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