All I wanted was a status symbol. What I got was a $31,000 lesson in the downside of payment apps. The point here isn't that Zelle is worse than all the other places that invented this fun, frictionless way to accidentally transfer your net worth to someone else you were supposedly told to pay. It's just that Zelle is bigger. And that nobody — not the banks, not the police, not the Feds — feels it's their job to go after the criminals when it happens.