Zelle is safe and secure to use. But then the safety in the usage of Zelle only covers the aspect of sending money to people who you know and you trust, when in the case of strangers, Zelle is not safe. This is because Zelle, there is no protection program for any transaction that has been authorized.
That is, there is no protection program for payments made through Zelle. Therefore, if there is no assurance that you will receive what you are paying for it is better you just go on ahead and use a payment method that will ensure payment protection program or purchase protection, such kind of methods include the use of credit cards even PayPal.
Better still, there is a very safe way of avoiding the loss of money in situations like this, apart from the use of a method that ensures payment protection, another way is to not do the transaction at all.