A former beauty queen has issued a warning after youthful scammers cheated her out of $2,000 in New York City. Briana Siaca, a real estate agent and one-time Miss New York USA, shared a video on TikTok about how she fell victim to a common “Zelle” scam. “If you live in New York City or know of anyone who lives here, be careful,” Siaca says on the video, which has been viewed more than 552,000 times.
“Yesterday, I was sitting in Madison Square Park, in nature, minding my business, listening to a podcast and these two boys came over, and they were fundraising for their basketball team,” she recounted. “They allegedly play in South Bronx and can’t afford their uniforms — and they were giving me the whole spiel,” she explained. “I agreed to give them some money, but I didn’t have any cash on me, so they accepted Venmo and Zelle,” Siaca said of the U.
S. money-sending methods. The former pageant queen handed over her phone to one of the boys after he offered to put in their account information to her Zelle app.
A post shared by Briana Siaca (@brisiaca) “He takes my phone, starts putting in his stuff,” she recalled as the other boy spoke to her about their team and how much she would be helping them. Siaca said she then noticed how long the boy was taking with her phone, snatched it back, prompting the pair to thank her and run off. “I looked at my Zelle account, and they sent themselves $2,000,” she said.
Siaca said that while her bank was unable t.