These days, it’s easier than ever to send money to your friends and family using person-to-person payment mobile apps. With just a few clicks, you can instantly pay a friend back for dinner, send money for a graduation gift, or transfer funds to your son’s bank account–-even if you don’t use the same bank.
But while P2P mobile apps are convenient and easy to use, they’re not without risk. Person-to-person payments are Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers, which means that the money is moved electronically through the ACH network. This allows the money to transfer quickly and easily (sometimes immediately), but it also means that funds may be difficult if not impossible to recover once they’re submitted.
At Chambers Bank, we want to make sure you know how to transfer money safely--whether you’re using our P2P service or someone else’s. To decrease your risk of P2P scams or fraud, we recommend the following:
- Do not share your app login information with anyone. Choose a unique password for your account (one that you do not use for any other purpose and that cannot be easily guessed by someone else), and make sure you have a passcode on your phone that you do not share with others.
- Only send P2P payments to people you know and trust; if someone you don’t know is pushing you to send a payment quickly via a P2P app, that is likely a red flag.
- Treat all P2P payments like cash. Money moves quickly from those apps, so make sure you have the recipient’s phone number and/or email address typed in correctly. Once you’ve sent the funds, they may not be recoverable if you sent them to the wrong person. (Pro tip: Send a smaller amount first and verify that the sender received the transfer before sending a larger amount.)
- Be aware of phishing. If someone contacts you pretending to be the bank or a P2P service (PayPal, Cash App, Venmo, Zelle, etc.) and asks for your account or login information, do not share that info. Make sure you do not disclose any personal or bank account info unless you initiated the phone call to a number that is published on the company’s website.
- Consider using Chambers People Pay instead of other P2P apps. With Chambers People Pay, you can set up specific alerts via Online Banking to let you know when a People Pay payment has been scheduled.
Chambers People Pay has a limit of $200/transaction and $300/day to help reduce your risk of fraud. Need to send more? Contact us and we can increase your limit, either temporarily or permanently.
As a reminder, Chambers Bank will never call you and ask you to tell us any personal or bank account information. If someone calls you claiming to be Chambers Bank and asks for that info, please hang up and call us at 1-800-603-1226 to verify the call.
We’re here to help you protect your finances.