Reserve Proposes Customers to Use Their Business Zelle Accounts to Process Payments

Reserve, a fintech and cryptocurrency-related exchange and payment processing app, sent an email yesterday to its customers asking for their help in processing payments by leveraging their personal Zelle accounts to do so. This raised certain alarms in the community, that are now wary of a third-party company using their accounts to do its payments on its behalf.

Reserve Proposes Customers to Use Their Zelle Accounts for Payment Processing

Yesterday, lots of customers were surprised by an email sent by Reserve (a fintech/ cryptocurrency exchange and payment processing company backed by the creator of the Petro, Gabriel Jimenez) asking to lend their business Zelle accounts to use them for processing payments. The surprising email mentioned giving rewards for this in an informal way, offering ‘thousands’ for helping the company by the use of these business Zelle accounts.

Many users were alarmed by this proposal and took it to social media to protest and alert against the risks of lending their Zelle accounts to third-party businesses. In fact, the Zelle User Service Agreement explicitly states:

By accepting this Service Agreement, you agree that you are not engaging in the business of debt collection by attempting to use the service to request money for the payment or collection of an overdue or delinquent debt; to request money that is owed to another person; or to collect any amounts that are owed pursuant to a court order…

It seems to be letting debt collecting for third parties out of its scope or use.

However, this all shows that the company has grown immensely since the time of its introduction to Venezuela, and that is currently facing hardships to cope with the volume of Zelle transactions that are being done using its payment services. Zelle is a powerful tool in Venezuela, accepted informally in most retailers in the country, and used commonly; this is why it’s so important for Reserve to maintain an important stock of fresh Zelle dollars to be used at any given time.

Reserve Answers to the Alarmed Community

The news went viral on social media and Reserve answered the issue with another email to its customers, clarifying what the company meant with the earlier email. In the new email, Reserve apologized to its community and explained the true purpose of the proposal. The new statement exposed that this was just an enrollment call for new P2P liquidity providers in the backbone or Reserve’s partners. Reserve stressed that:

“The process to participate as a payment processor in Reserve is not open, because it is more restricted and strict than in other P2P platforms, because we are a U.S. company subject to U.S. laws, and want to maintain a constant quality of service by avoiding frequent scams present in P2P models.”

Regardless of this, Venezuelans have been burned before by U.S. banks regarding the use of Zelle as a payment method. Last year, Wells Fargo announced they were blocking their Zelle services for Venezuelans, only to restitute it at a later date. Even so, anything that has to do with the use of Zelle alerts the Venezuelan community.