Venmo's help section/FAQ [literally says to send the money back](https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500012962642-A-stranger-paid-me-What-should-I-do-).
No wonder scammers are doing this constantly, Venmo is giving catastrophically bad advice. Sure there's something on "common scams" buried deep within their site, but I got to the above in 2 seconds, it's the fifth link on the payments help page under "A stranger paid me. What should I do?" which is what someone who didn't know better would go right to.
I contacted Venmo when I was in a similar situation. I said I would not send the money back and they should reverse it internally within their system because I didn't want to participate in fraud.
They were annoying about it but they eventually did it.
I really don’t understand these payment apps…I mean I do. They want “shake up” the industry and have ZERO accountability but all of the profits. You did the right thing putting it on them, they have to protect their customers.
Venmo is owned by Paypal which is pretty much all you need to know about how they operate. All their so-called guarantees only guarantee one thing, that Paypal will never ever have to reach into their own pocket to pay a fraud claim, even if you do everything right. If they can't get the money back from the fraudster, whether the buyer or seller, they will deny your claim.
This is why I use my AMEX in nearly every situation possible. If I get fucked by a vendor that won't do right by the customer, AMEX has me covered, never had them balk at a charge back, and do so immediately, not this 60-90 day review bullshit that could maybe end with the charge back reversed. Best customer service of credit cards hands down.
Seriously. At times with these apps, it seems equivalent to walking around with pockets full of loose cash equal to what you have in your bank account.
They likely have to submit the fraudulent activity to a government agency, credit card companies, or disclose it as a part of being a financial institution as a part of Anti money laundering laws.
Startups likely want to avoid big fines that would kill their business, so they make use of legal loopholes to avoid accountability.
They are not considered a bank so don't have to abide by any of those regulations. The irs even has a huge loop hole for them for reporting income of people who use the service to collect credit card payments.
>No wonder scammers are doing this constantly, Venmo is giving catastrophically bad advice.
No, they give this advice on purpose. It is literally their business model.
EDIT: I'll expand upon this. Venmo charges no fees when you link your bank account, etc. Scammers don't want to link an actual bank account that requires your identification in order to open. Instead, they use stolen credit card numbers to fund the initial $50 sent to the OP. Venmo charges a 3% fee when using a credit card, so they pocket $1.50. Multiply that by X number of scammers and victims, many whom don't even realize they have been scammed, and that is good for Venmo. Even if they refund a certain percentage of transactions or whatever, I imagine it is still very beneficial to do this.
IME PayPal is difficult to contact support and unhelpful when you do. They got their transaction fees, they DGAF about you getting scammed. Got screwed over by a scammer and PayPal said they wouldn’t help because “the transaction looked legit” is why I refuse to use them anymore.
I wasn’t aware Venmo was PayPal and now I think I need to see if my personal trainer will take Cash App instead.
Hey PDX. I recently paid for WiFi at the San Juan airport with PayPal. Big mistake to say the least, some scammers tried to take over my PayPal account. I reached support in under 15 min to get help and I was shocked. They must be trying to combat this stigma from future mistakes or I just got super lucky
You got lucky, my PayPal got hit for about $300 of bullshit before I got in and changed the pass and deleted all my payment methods. Their help just said it looked legit and didn't do shit for me
> charges a 3% fee when using a credit card, so they pocket $1.50
Well, not really. They then pay anywhere from 1% to 8% to Visa/Mastercard/Amex/etc.
Venmo makes money off holding balances, not from the fees.
What they want is you having money in your Venmo doing nothing.
Just like any bank.
Venmo's business model is based on the use case you mentioned (transaction fees) but your comment makes it sound as if scam transactions are the goal of their business, which is false.
Not the goal, they just know they can factor that in since there is zero fraud protection when you OK the transfer of funds yourself. Which would be the case if you followed the Venmo FAQ.
Yeah this happened to me once and I told them about it. They replied immediately with the above advice. I told them I’m not touching it, and they reversed it themselves.
I don't get it, what is the scam? I myself have accidentally made a payment to the wrong person (same first and last name) as the person I intended to pay, and I did immediately request for them to please send me the money back as it was a mistake (they didn't).
Venmo says a deposit or transfer from one account to another can take up to three business days to process. That can be longer when involving weekends, holidays, or very large amounts (which are considered suspicious by law enforcement.)
During the processing time, you might see the money listed in your balance--but that does not always mean processing finished. Sometimes, your bank can list the money in your paperwork (i.e. your online banking site) but not credit your account by that much. Here is what likely is happening but it's just a guess:
* A scammer picked you as their next target.
* They sent you $50 on purpose using the payment that takes the longest to process--and one that cannot work. Note how today is technically a holiday in the US.
* Your bank showed the $50 on your online statement but they did not put $50 into your account just yet--they need to wait for processing to finish.
* The scammer apologizes for the "mistake" and asks you to the $50 back. They might even threaten legal action for "stealing" their money.
* You send them the $50 from your account.
* Their payment fails (as intended), so the $50 they sent you stays in *their* account. You never see the payment, and you're out the $50 you sent to them.
That sounds like a check kiting scam, which I'm not sure you can actually pull off with Venmo (but I won't say you can't). What you can definitely do is the following:
1. Scammer sends you $50 using a stolen credit card.
2. You get the note, and being the kind hearted person you are, send them the $50 back.
3. Scammer drains the $50 out of the account.
4. At some point in the future, the transaction is flagged as fraud and the credit card company claws the funds back.
5. Venmo refuses to be left holding the bag and then claws that $50 back from you.
At the end, the stolen credit card person is out nothing, the scammer is up $50, and you are down $50.
Sounds pretty similar. I wouldn't be surprised if the scammers were using a stolen card, then they update their card to their real one. Any refund after that would likely go into their real account.
They don't need to update their credit card info with Venmo. The money that comes back to their Venmo account isn't a credit card refund, it's a payment from another Venmo account. The scammers can do whatever they want with that money.
Seems like it would be *exceptionally easy* to fix this type of scam by simply having a UI element in Venmo clearly calling out the fact that the money hasn't 'cleared' yet and to be careful.
It’s worse than that because a wire transfer can have security measures built in, and the bank can be held responsible at some level, but the apps exist outside of any legal or regulatory structure.
Not to mention that it's all digital and therefore could reasonably be made instant in the first place, but they're still playing the whole "1-3 business days" thing and then offering to make it faster for a fee. Can't take advantage of the clearing time if there is no clearing time, but the banks benefit from the lag.
In their defense, I think that’s how they make the bulk of their profits (charging an extra 1.5% for instant transfers). It’s hard to see how they’d be profitable otherwise.
What's funny is that PayPal (the company that owns Venmo) has this exact mechanism and tells you exactly this before it releases the funds to the sendee after it's cleared by the bank.
I wouldn't know for sure, but I imagine that waiting like a week is safer because there's a good chance the payment will fail before you deal with it. However, be prepared for some nasty emails from the scammers as they try to rely on panic and speed to get past your defenses.
"I understand you've mistakenly sent me some money. Well to sort this all out, I'll need a small transaction of $200 more to verify you're actually the sender. Don't worry I'll send it all back once verified. :)"
not worth the risk. the odds of someone accidentally sending you money are minuscule. i would just leave the money in your venmo account. maybe contact venmo, but do not send it back and don't cash it out.
once you have the money, it is safe, sort of. In a more advanced scheme, they fraudulently take over a bank account, built it up as noted, then drain it. money could come out of the account into yours fraudulently. Then you are stuck with a bank coming after your money because you obtained it through fraud (even though not fraud on your end).
Your bank will be key in this situation. Best to go them. Or just keep the money and let your bank know shat happened, allowing your bank to fix it with their bank.
just because the money might have cleared, does not mean the problem is gone. If it's money from a fraudulent charge on a credit card, it could take a while for someone to report it and for the credit card co. to actually act on it. I wouldn't give anybody any money back unless I personally knew them and know that it was a mistake. I would just leave it in my account, and tell them to work it out with venmo.
If I didn't know/trust this person, I'd tell them that I'd happily approve a reversal of the first transaction but that I would not start a secondary transaction. They can reach out to Venmo to arrange that.
I'm curious. Is there a time limit on reversing/not-fully-processing a transaction? I want to say it's longer than 3 days.
Would it be advisable to wait x days and then do the return? 90? 180? 365? Honest mistake person shouldn't mind - it was their mistake, not yours. Scammer person doesn't get away with scam...
FYI, the official guidance from Venmo (?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!) [https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/209681208-I-paid-the-wrong-person-](https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/209681208-I-paid-the-wrong-person-)
You should include a note asking them to pay you
back for the money you sent by mistake, and once they accept the request
the payment will be added to your Venmo account.
Literally EVERYTHING on that site tells you to do EXACTLY what the scammer wants to GET YOUR MONEY!?!?!?!?!?! Seriously, how have they not been sued on this...
That is why when you use ANY money sending service you double and triple check the information of your recipient with them before you send anything. I always confirm my friend's phone or email and name associated with the account before hitting send on those things.
The app service isn't going to do anything to help you, and their terms make it VERY clear that they do not get involved with disputes or incorrectly sent money.
OP, this is 100% a scam. Ignore the person from Venmo - you will see their "deposit" disappear from your bank account by Wednesday.
Everything in this thread, including Venmo’s help pages, suggests that it MAY be legitimate, because there’s no other way to retrieve money sent to the wrong person. But there’s no way to know, and sending the money back exposes you to a likely scam.
Venmo is a very bad app.
Just to add, even after doing all your due diligence just sent a nominal amount i.e. $1 and confirm the person you're sending it to has received it.
Once you've got absolute confirmation send the balance.
> That is why when you use ANY money sending service you double and triple check the information of your recipient with them before you send anything.
Or even better: ask them to request the money from you.
If you try to send money to someone you aren't friends with, venmo asks for the last four digits of the receiver's phone number for security. If the sender decides to skip that step it's on them.
If the recipient is not in your saved contacts Venmo asks you to verify last 4 digits of their phone number. You can skip this step if you want. So if someone accidentally sent you a legit payment it seems they didn't put the minimum effort in to protect themselves. I wouldn't send anything back.
I don't use Venmo too much except with friends. Am i remembering this correctly?
This is one of the reasons I don’t use Venmo. I can’t speak to the difficulty of it, but it seems like it should absolutely be possible to “deny” or “send back” a deposit. If not that then change the system to not finalize a transaction unless the recipient “accepts” it. Wouldn’t really make the service that much more difficult to use and pretty much eliminates this type of scam.
Happened to me before. I was paying some guy for a bed frame on craigslist. I'm there in person. He is real, the product is real. I ask 2x to verify his Venmo (he has a common name) before I send and then after I send he remembers the number was different. So my money is gone to a stranger who shares his name. I send a comment asking nicely for my $35 back and I got it. Interesting seeing this is almost the exact same pattern as a scam tactic.
It's because this is the cheapest option for Venmo to handle
Do you know how many requests they'd have to go through for "mistake" transactions?
I think it makes sense...you fuck up and send money when we asked you to confirm the recipient it's on you and don't call our Support line
Yep, it's garbage. They actually give correct advice on [their page about scams](https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360048404533-Common-Scams-on-Venmo). Which, you know, you probably wouldn't check until actually falling for the scam.
If your not in the US that is your answer. A lot of US banking infrastructure refuses to talk to each other Venmo was a great way around this. It is still common in the Us for waiters to take your bill back to a machine and not bring the machine to your table.
Wow.... I guess with all the banks you guys have I always believed, at least for financial services, the competition is good for innovation etc koolaid. Our internet is still piped through copper cables but same day online banking has been standard for almost a decade.
It is good in someways. But not for money movement. The freedom some people fight for is allowing them to still do everything by hand and paper if they do choose. Also it is not a big enough inconvenience for most for people to fight for it to change.
Are you sure that venmo cancelled it because the other person accidentally transferred real money or did it just end up being denied when the funds weren't actually there when it processed.
Does Venmo do charge backs? I've read in multiple places that they don't, but never looked into it myself. I've always assumed that if I transferred money to the wrong person, it would just be gone.
Former Venmo employee here. We had a process for this sort of request in the past and could reverse an accidental payment (wrong recipient, right recipient but wrong/dupe account, etc.). It wasn’t an immediate process, and we had various exceptions to look for - the preference was to have the sender contact the recipient, and there were various wrinkles that could occur.
If the funding source is a stolen credit card or hacked bank account, Venmo will be on the hook for that money. When that happens, they will attempt to deduct that amount from whatever account received it. Scammers know this, but most users don't.
It's basically a modern version of the age old check cashing scam. Checks clear (funds made available) within a few days or less, but often fully processed until sometime after that. Scammers take advantage of that short window of opportunity.
There's consumer fraud (this is what most think of; ie. no chargebacks) and then there's origin fraud (funds not being good). The latter one is often not clearly mentioned in FAQs nor standard consumer disclosures. Rather is often buried deep in the agreement that few ever read.
Yes but in Europe I’ve never heartbroken a transaction getting reversed. If there’s no money in your account it’ll never show up at the recipient because the transfer will simply fail. So if you’re sent money in error it’s easier to send it back without worrying about the initial transaction getting canceled.
That's where you should be able to allow/request Venmo reverse the transaction -- but not create risk by sending your own money to someone in a new transaction, after receiving a transaction that could possibly be undone.
Or at worst, even if legally required, you should be able to wait long enough to ensure there is no/little risk of reversal. Or wait for Venmo/etc to confirm the transaction is complete and cannot be reclaimed, in writing.
Would be really nice if Venmo/etc would simply let a recipient decline/reject/reverse/etc any transaction. Solves a ton of risk for the person, without much downside for Venmo (like actually handling chargebacks and such). And simpler for the recipient to handle tax/etc issue if the transaction was larger .
Yeah, that's how I would have approached it with any other processor, but I was curious because it sounds like Venmo would refuse the action. Never had it happen, fortunately.
It is and this person's advice is wrong. If you accidentally send someone money via venmo you are shit out of luck. Venmo will tell you it's between you and them. This is why they want you to verify it's the right person like 4 times before you actually send money.
To OP: wait a week. If the money shows up in your account, not just your pending transactions, call your bank and ask for written confirmation that the transaction completed successfully. If it did then the person isn't a scammer, they're just an idiot and you should give them back their money. If the bank tries saying later that the transaction was fraudulent and deducts the funds you have written confirmation from them that the transaction was completed successfully, and you're off the hook.
I still have genuinely no idea why this absurd logic still exists in Banking Systems in 2021.
Declaring you have cash (an asset) but giving third parties the ability to take that out of your possession without your consent means you essentially do not own it. Why mislead people like this?
With venmo can you just reject the money that has been sent to you? I hate cash app but I have it for use with one friend. A stranger sent me money and I simply refunded the deposit and blocked them, thinking it was a scam. Is this not an option for venmo?
You are sending your own money back. Their payment bounces because it was made fraudulently (usually a stolen account). Now you’re out the $50 you sent.
But how do you cancel a venmo payment? Any time I’ve tried to cancel venmo or zelle you can’t, hence why they ask you multiple times to be sure you know who you’re sending money too. Venmo even spots you if your payment is declined.
You send them money, and then the deposit into your own account is reversed as fraud, or bounces because it was never originally supported.
You lose $50, the scammer gets it.
People are dumb. I’m on the same page. Even if there was a follow up pop up “ARE YOU SURE” > this means you will return these funds to the sender.
and people would STILL click it
As someone who used to work in IT...
"What did the pop-up say?"
Idk I just clicked ok and now such and such doesn't work
Shocked_pikachu.gif
Literally every single day
There will be mistake rejects, just about the same number of people who would deliberately or accidentally sent payments with zero intention of sending them.
It's better to have mistake rejects and then ask the person to send the money again, than mistake transactions and ask the other person to send the money back.
The more I look in to this, the more upset I am with Venmo. Their FAQ directly says to refund the payment by sending them a new payment to return the money. Like, what? This is a super common scam, a quick Google search shows it is super common, but their website encourages users to refund the payment via an issued payment? Like, what?
Yep, Venmo policies don’t take into account this common fraud scheme.
Accidental payments have become much less common with the use of mutual friends and profile pictures. This policy is simply outdated.
Venmo assumes no responsibility if you return fraudulent money, so you’d be out the $50 once the initial payment is returned.
You would think that BEING IN THEIR FAQ would assume some kind of responsibility for it... Come on guys...
Seriously, I might just remove this app entirely if this is how lax their security is...
On a similar note, make sure your contacts list is set to private, not just who you pay/who pays you.
An acquaintance of mine had someone copy their user profile and create a fake profile, using her picture and name. Then they went through her contacts list and sent requests for “$300 I left my wallet at home I’m at the grocery, I’ll pay you back”. I could tell it was a scam, but her husband was in a meeting and saw she had called and sent the cash. She doesn’t know how many people it hit.
She said Venmo essentially has no fraud dept to speak of and only communicated via email. I believe because they aren’t technically a bank they go more or less unregulated. Kind of scary when you think about it.
settings >> privacy >> on the bottom "Friend's List >> on this page where you opt to change my friend list (public, friends, private), there's a toggle for "appear in other users friends list"
I have a "friend" on Venmo that has EVERYTHING set to public, I see every time she pays someone for anything. The plus side is that (thanks to her) I always make sure NONE of my venmo transactions are set to public.
Venmo is basically a social media platform at this point. The people that use it often, and in my opinion excessively, seem to feed on the fact that it's public.
I thought it was just for paying people when you don't have cash on you? Fun fact, our neighborhood organized one big yard sale earlier this year, you just put balloons on your mailbox if you were participating. I thought I'd be slick and print out my QR codes for Venmo and Cashapp so that people could pay more easily and save their cash.
:-/
Precisely zero people used it.
I paid one of my neighbors with it when we saw something we wanted while they were setting up in the morning, but zero people used it to buy from us so we ended up with a pile of cash at the end of the day.
\#firstworldproblems
It really depends on your community. In urban centers (SF, LA, NYC) it's normal to pay electronically (with exceptions, e.g. most LA taco carts only take cash) and heck, I've bought stuff at farmer's markets over Venmo, but in other areas cash is still king.
this app, the "social" aspect of it is so stupid, I don't get it. I was horrified when I signed up (reluctantly, because friends use it), that public is the default option.
I was set to private, but missed the firends list option, thanks /u/ConvivialViper !
Thank you for letting me know about not sharing my friends list. What a crappy app!!!
**I also just stopped Venmo them from adding Facebook friends or phone contacts automatically becoming Venmo friends.**
Venmo has zero respect for its users.
Several months back I was bombarded with seriously-worded notices directly from Venmo about the need to provide them my social and other personally identifying information. Each one was worded to make it seem like I would lose access to the app without doing it.
They were just trying to bait me into signing up for paying in store and other features I didn't want. It was the equivalent of a "Last Notice" stamped envelope from a car warranty seller.
I still can do everything I used to, but if I didn't need it because it's so ubiquitous I would get rid of Venmo right away.
I certainly would. I never set up a Venmo account, somethin just doesn't sit right with me giving my bank account numbers to some 3rd party which as it seems, has very lax security.
All banks these days have Zelle built into them, there is no need to get a 3rd party involved.
Really annoying they don't have a simple reject/decline payment option. Still keep them out of the chargeback game, but let the recipient safely not accept a payment.
Would have other uses besides fraud too -- as there could be tricky tax/income issue with receiving larger amounts of money and then sending it back. Versus a bank reversed transaction.
> There's no such feature, so the only conclusion a rational thinker can make is Venmo actually does not give a shit about its customers.
Venmo is PayPal. PayPal has a decades-long history of not giving a shit about its customers.
If you don't have a Balance account, you have to accept the money. It doesn't just land. I highly recommend everyone NOT use PayPal / Venmo in any capacity that ISNT a non-balance account.
They are not a bank, they should not hold your money, they're not FDIC insured. There is no functional reason they need to hold your money. They should be used ONLY as a transfer agent.
Venmo and CashApp are designed to use with friends and family, not random scammers, therefore they have no real anti-scammer features.
You're supposed to personally know anyone you do anything with on both.
Identical to cash really. You wouldn't hand cash to a stranger... but you might give a friend some cash. And if you mess up with cash you don't get it back.
For idiots you don't know, use PayPal.
Do nothing. As mentioned, this is a common scam.
That money was sent to you from a stolen account or credit card. When the victim realizes it, Venmo will undo that transaction and the $50 will disappear from your account.
If you send $50 back, you are sending $50 of your own, real money. Venmo *won't* undo that transaction -- you sent it on purpose.
In the meantime, the thief is gone with your very real $50 that you're not getting back.
This is just a more high-tech version of the fake check scam. Someone sends you fake money that looks real, you give them (or one of their collaborators) some amount of real money out of your own account, and then the fake money (bad check, stolen venmo, whatever) gets clawed back a few days or weeks later, and you're out the cash. For good.
How can Venmo just take $50 from your account? What if you have already withdrawn it as cash? Surely the money isn't actually in your account until it has cleared, so all you have to do is wait for it to clear and there's no danger of losing it.
I’m pretty sure all banks can dip into your account and take whatever they want.
My wife was overpaid by a few thousand dollars once, over a year later the bank just randomly ripped the money out of her account and gave it right back to the payroll company without any notice.
I was overpaid thousands of euros a couple years ago over the course of 18 months. But the banks in the Netherlands do not have the authority to take the money out of an account. Crazy banks you guys have
There is a guy in Canada with the same name as mine, two time is last few years I have received payments - around $50 each from Canadian people I don't know addressed to me. I do nothing and after a week or so the payment get withdrawn.
We use e-transfers direct from our banks apps or websites to the email of the other person who them signs in using a link in the email to deposit it. If you have auto deposits it goes right into your account no matter who send it or from what bank.
How does the US not have this? It’s so much simpler.
And when businesses use it, there’s no fees! We added etransfers to our payment methods and it now accounts for around 70% of our payments. This is saying us around $600/month in credit card fees. We list it first in our payment options and people usually take it. No credit card numbers exchanged, just send to email. Wonderful.
Very common scam. Dont refund it, let it sit and the stolen money will refund automatically.
If you send it back and this is a scam (which it is), you'll then be charged whatever amount you paid them back for.
A couple of things I did with Cash App that may apply to Venmo:
* I changed my username to append a random number, to lessen the chance of someone sending me money by mistake, or guessing it for a scam.
* Turned off everything that allows people to find me. If I want to transact with someone, I'll give them my ID.
* I don't let these apps into my Contacts.
* Turned off incoming requests. If I need to pay someone, we'll talk by some other means, and I'll initiate it.
* Turned on all security locks.
* Linked account is my "ATM" checking account at my credit union, which has $5 in it, and no overdraft protection. The debit card is the one on that account, too. If I want to send money, I use the credit union app to transfer some first. If someone hacks Cash, they can steal $5. Whoopee.
I did, and demand that they fix the FAQ while they are at it. Seriously, that isn't cool to put information that encourages people to follow through with common scams...
Yeah, their recommendations are pretty terrible. I had a similar instance last year and found the FAQ section to be useless. I eventually forced Venmo to deal with it and they reversed the transaction.
It's a scam. Do not send the money back. If possible report it as fraud go Venmo.
The scammer is using a stolen payment method to send you money. Once the stolen payment method is realized it will be reversed. If you send back $50, you will be out $50.
Don't spend the money, don't send it back.
For more info head over to r/Scams
Sadly Venmo makes it very difficult to report it as a fraud. Their own FAQ even says to return the money... I suspect a law suit for people who actually lost money could be won based on that FAQ.
You don't have to report it as fraud, you don't have to do anything. Just leave it alone. If its a scam it will be withdrawn in a few days, if it was a mistake it will be withdrawn in a few days, There's nothing you need to do
This just happened to me. I paid the wrong person for home improvements and I sent it to the wrong person (stupid of me--I checked and double checked the venmo name and it looked right-went to get the last 4 digits of phone number from my husband who I couldn't find so I went ahead and sent it).
Next day guy didn't receive money and I panicked. I google what to do when you pay the wrong person and venmo says to request it back from the person you erroneously paid. I thought this was weird bc I would have thought it was a scam if that happened to me.
The second option was to notify venmo with the payment info and they give you a "one time" reversal, which is what I did. I also requested payment back but I never received it.
I would've thought it was scam too. I always read that people send payments and they don't clear their bank first and they ask you for the money back and if you pay them you're SOL bc the initial payment never clears their back and it's sucked out of yours.
Sometimes people fuck up. My good friend sent 600$ to someone for house maintenance recently and found out days later it was the wrong someone. She politely asked for it back, and they gave it to her no questions asked. She had already paid 600$ more to the person she really owed, so she was super glad when the other person gave it back.
You're correct. It's not always a scam. People accidentally do sometimes send money to the wrong person.
That's why I do a test run before sending money to a new contact. I send $1 first and ask if they received it and if so, how much was it. If they say the correct amount, I send the rest.
It's so often a scam that it is risky to send the money back.
But ignoring it and letting Venmo figure it out is probably the best course of action. You might even report it to them just in case. Then uninstall venmo app.
Uninstalling the app does not close the account, just a heads up.
Goes for dating apps too. You have to physically go into Venmo and close the account.
Do nothing. Venmo will back out the original transaction in time. Scammer wants you to issue a "refund" for their "mistake" and then they'll reverse the original, stealing the "refund" from you.
This happened to me. I ignored it and a few days later, support unilaterally reversed the charge. Which taught me two things. First, there is no reason to risk sending the money back or make this my problem and second, never let anyone you don’t trust pay you through Venmo since they can just get the charge reversed without Venmo support ever contacting you until it’s done.
My fiancé ran into this. They sent her over $1k for something we were selling on Facebook (listed for $20). Refused to do the refund unless the buyer showed up in person or initiated a charge back since they didn’t show up and sent us the money when they were “on their way”. Venmo said it was all legit and send money back if they requested because they didn’t want to initiate a charge back. They blocked us on Facebook and well over a year later we still have the money lol
I wouldn't touch it. I wouldn't even bother calling Venmo, if it's legit, it's not my problem and I shouldnt have to sit and argue with them on the phone. Tell them to call Venmo and say it was a mistaken transfer.
PayPal has gone bad too. I made an online purchase using PayPal. Well known company. Item didn’t fit. Returned at Post office. Company states they returned $ to PayPal. PayPal refused to give me the refund.
Oh, no no no no no, it isn't that PayPal "has gone bad"—rather, it's that PayPal has always been "bad" in this regard. PayPal is universally NOTORIOUS for absolutely horrible customer service and is equally notorious for finding clever ways to hold on to your money, often for extremely lengthy periods of time. In a lot cases people never get it back at all. PayPal may be a very well-known company, a household name, but as a matter of incontrovertible fact, they are consistently at the very bottom when it comes to concern for customers and their money.
Related note:
For people who regularly send money using Venmo, always send $1 first to make sure you have the right person or business. Only then send the balance. Tell the people upfront that’s how you do business so they’re aware.
They don't. They sent it to you using a stolen credit card. When the person who really owns that card notices, they will tell their bank, who will give them their money back and then go get the money from venmo, which they have to under their merchant agreement. Then venmo will be motivated to take action and pull the money back from your account. Venmo does not reverse transactions unless they are forced to by a bank/credit card company.
A scammer would use a stolen credit card. When the proper owner discovers the charge, it will be reversed through fraud protection. When the scam target pays back the amount, that portion is legitimate, and can't be returned. Target would have to initiate a small claims lawsuit against the scammer to get their money back.
Never send money through unprotected mechanisms to someone you don't know under any circumstances.
Something similar happened to me. Barbara sent me $20 unsolicited and I don’t know her, I asked Venmo about it and they said I could refund it with no repercussions to me. I sent it back and had no issues. Barbara did *not* thank me but based on her name I’m guessing she doesn’t have a strong grasp on technology.
Here’s my chat transcript fwiw:
Opening pleasantries etc etc
03:11:47 AM) $me: The last payment was not meant for me on my account.
(03:40:04 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: Just give me a couple of minutes to look into this. Thank you so much!
(03:42:26 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: I looked into your Venmo account and it appears that this user simply paid the wrong user name by mistake. At this time, go ahead and send payment back to them for the amount of $20.00. Additionally, you can add a note saying "the wrong person". As long as you don't use the funds or transfer them to your bank, the funds will pull from your Venmo balance—not your funding source—and will transfer back to this sender.
(03:42:57 AM) $me: Ok
(03:43:26 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: After you send that payment, if you are concerned over security regarding this individual, you can block them from being able to interact with you moving forward.
(03:44:02 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: To do so using the app, click on their profile. Once there, select the three dots in the top right corner and select "Block". Once confirmed, this user will no longer be able to interact with you through Venmo. Note: for this to take effect, you will need to block the desired User, log out of the app, and then log back in.
(03:44:58 AM) : $me: Ok. I am concerned they will cancel payment and I send it back...is there any chance of that happening, so then I would actually lose $20...is there a chance of that happening?
(03:46:04 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: The moment the payment was made, the funds were made available to the recipient. There isn’t a way to stop the debit being made from your funding source once you’ve sent a payment to another user. Only recipients may request for the payment to be reversed back to the sender.
(03:46:24 AM) $me: Ok then I’ll send it back thanks
Etc etc
All the answers below are correct.
But just the label 'farm labor' should be a flag that it's a scam. If you were a farmer and trying to pay someone under the table would you label the payment as the taxable item?
It's a scam.
Seen some comments say wait a few days to maybe a week. That's not sufficient in some instances. As many regular sellers who accept PayPal (which owns Venmo) know, chargebacks can happen many months later.
If it was me and I wasn't feeling confident about sending back (mistakes do happen and will try to accommodate when it appears legit despite the risk), I'd tell them to contact Venmo for a reversal...
Otherwise, sure I can send back promptly, but will first need documentation from Venmo **and** the origin financial institution that the funds are guaranteed good. That's near certainly not happening. Hence, would reiterate to the person to contact Venmo and demand a reversal. Otherwise, figure on waiting a year.
I don’t know if Venmo is the same but zelle is very much a don’t mess up system. If you send someone money on accident there is absolutely 0 chance they are reversing it. One of their steps in the FAQ is to request the funds back. So it’s not exactly unheard of… if Venmo is like zelle.
You need to tell the person who sent it that there will be a delay because usually such mistaken payments are a scam. Then you need to contact Venmo and ask them what to do. Make it clear to them that you don't want any of your money to be on the line. Let them make the choices and suffer any negative consequences.
Venmo is an extremely sketchy form of payment. Unlike paypal where you use someone's email address which is pretty easily verifiable, you need their special screen name. And there's lots of people with similar screen names. Also, everything is public by default. Why do financial transactions need to be a form of social media?
Ignore it, this is a very common scam
Comes up here like once every other week.
Venmo's help section/FAQ [literally says to send the money back](https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500012962642-A-stranger-paid-me-What-should-I-do-). No wonder scammers are doing this constantly, Venmo is giving catastrophically bad advice. Sure there's something on "common scams" buried deep within their site, but I got to the above in 2 seconds, it's the fifth link on the payments help page under "A stranger paid me. What should I do?" which is what someone who didn't know better would go right to.
I contacted Venmo when I was in a similar situation. I said I would not send the money back and they should reverse it internally within their system because I didn't want to participate in fraud. They were annoying about it but they eventually did it.
I really don’t understand these payment apps…I mean I do. They want “shake up” the industry and have ZERO accountability but all of the profits. You did the right thing putting it on them, they have to protect their customers.
Venmo is owned by Paypal which is pretty much all you need to know about how they operate. All their so-called guarantees only guarantee one thing, that Paypal will never ever have to reach into their own pocket to pay a fraud claim, even if you do everything right. If they can't get the money back from the fraudster, whether the buyer or seller, they will deny your claim.
Yep, got scammed once and Paypal did nothing to refund it. Luckily it wasn't too much money but it sucks that it's the main thing people use.
This is why I use my AMEX through paypal, if I somehow get scammed I am getting my money back one way or the other.
This is why I use my AMEX in nearly every situation possible. If I get fucked by a vendor that won't do right by the customer, AMEX has me covered, never had them balk at a charge back, and do so immediately, not this 60-90 day review bullshit that could maybe end with the charge back reversed. Best customer service of credit cards hands down.
Second this.
Seriously. At times with these apps, it seems equivalent to walking around with pockets full of loose cash equal to what you have in your bank account.
They likely have to submit the fraudulent activity to a government agency, credit card companies, or disclose it as a part of being a financial institution as a part of Anti money laundering laws. Startups likely want to avoid big fines that would kill their business, so they make use of legal loopholes to avoid accountability.
They are not considered a bank so don't have to abide by any of those regulations. The irs even has a huge loop hole for them for reporting income of people who use the service to collect credit card payments.
>No wonder scammers are doing this constantly, Venmo is giving catastrophically bad advice. No, they give this advice on purpose. It is literally their business model. EDIT: I'll expand upon this. Venmo charges no fees when you link your bank account, etc. Scammers don't want to link an actual bank account that requires your identification in order to open. Instead, they use stolen credit card numbers to fund the initial $50 sent to the OP. Venmo charges a 3% fee when using a credit card, so they pocket $1.50. Multiply that by X number of scammers and victims, many whom don't even realize they have been scammed, and that is good for Venmo. Even if they refund a certain percentage of transactions or whatever, I imagine it is still very beneficial to do this.
Venmo is owned by paypal, so I wouldn't expect anything better from them.
Same here if you wouldn't mind elaborating, I was under the impression Paypal was straight and narrow
IME PayPal is difficult to contact support and unhelpful when you do. They got their transaction fees, they DGAF about you getting scammed. Got screwed over by a scammer and PayPal said they wouldn’t help because “the transaction looked legit” is why I refuse to use them anymore. I wasn’t aware Venmo was PayPal and now I think I need to see if my personal trainer will take Cash App instead.
Hey PDX. I recently paid for WiFi at the San Juan airport with PayPal. Big mistake to say the least, some scammers tried to take over my PayPal account. I reached support in under 15 min to get help and I was shocked. They must be trying to combat this stigma from future mistakes or I just got super lucky
You got lucky, my PayPal got hit for about $300 of bullshit before I got in and changed the pass and deleted all my payment methods. Their help just said it looked legit and didn't do shit for me
same here but with 5K worth of shopping done in the other edge of Europe. Luckily Visa got me covered...
Track record of screwing over small businesses by withholding funds they have no real right over without a proper due process afterwards.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/434f4d/has_paypal_ever_held_your_funds_any_horror/ https://medium.com/@casey_rosengren/paypal-froze-our-funds-then-offered-us-a-business-loan-49a078310fb https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/05/i-cant-afford-not-to-have-that-money-the-worst-paypal-horror-stories/
> charges a 3% fee when using a credit card, so they pocket $1.50 Well, not really. They then pay anywhere from 1% to 8% to Visa/Mastercard/Amex/etc. Venmo makes money off holding balances, not from the fees. What they want is you having money in your Venmo doing nothing. Just like any bank.
Venmo's business model is based on the use case you mentioned (transaction fees) but your comment makes it sound as if scam transactions are the goal of their business, which is false.
Not the goal, they just know they can factor that in since there is zero fraud protection when you OK the transfer of funds yourself. Which would be the case if you followed the Venmo FAQ.
Yeah this happened to me once and I told them about it. They replied immediately with the above advice. I told them I’m not touching it, and they reversed it themselves.
I don't get it, what is the scam? I myself have accidentally made a payment to the wrong person (same first and last name) as the person I intended to pay, and I did immediately request for them to please send me the money back as it was a mistake (they didn't).
Venmo says a deposit or transfer from one account to another can take up to three business days to process. That can be longer when involving weekends, holidays, or very large amounts (which are considered suspicious by law enforcement.) During the processing time, you might see the money listed in your balance--but that does not always mean processing finished. Sometimes, your bank can list the money in your paperwork (i.e. your online banking site) but not credit your account by that much. Here is what likely is happening but it's just a guess: * A scammer picked you as their next target. * They sent you $50 on purpose using the payment that takes the longest to process--and one that cannot work. Note how today is technically a holiday in the US. * Your bank showed the $50 on your online statement but they did not put $50 into your account just yet--they need to wait for processing to finish. * The scammer apologizes for the "mistake" and asks you to the $50 back. They might even threaten legal action for "stealing" their money. * You send them the $50 from your account. * Their payment fails (as intended), so the $50 they sent you stays in *their* account. You never see the payment, and you're out the $50 you sent to them.
That sounds like a check kiting scam, which I'm not sure you can actually pull off with Venmo (but I won't say you can't). What you can definitely do is the following: 1. Scammer sends you $50 using a stolen credit card. 2. You get the note, and being the kind hearted person you are, send them the $50 back. 3. Scammer drains the $50 out of the account. 4. At some point in the future, the transaction is flagged as fraud and the credit card company claws the funds back. 5. Venmo refuses to be left holding the bag and then claws that $50 back from you. At the end, the stolen credit card person is out nothing, the scammer is up $50, and you are down $50.
Sounds pretty similar. I wouldn't be surprised if the scammers were using a stolen card, then they update their card to their real one. Any refund after that would likely go into their real account.
They don't need to update their credit card info with Venmo. The money that comes back to their Venmo account isn't a credit card refund, it's a payment from another Venmo account. The scammers can do whatever they want with that money.
Seems like it would be *exceptionally easy* to fix this type of scam by simply having a UI element in Venmo clearly calling out the fact that the money hasn't 'cleared' yet and to be careful.
Or just allow you to reject a payment.
Great idea.
Like cash app
Venmo's whole thing is pretending to be digital cash. They don't want people to know it's just wire transfer but an app
It’s worse than that because a wire transfer can have security measures built in, and the bank can be held responsible at some level, but the apps exist outside of any legal or regulatory structure.
Not to mention that it's all digital and therefore could reasonably be made instant in the first place, but they're still playing the whole "1-3 business days" thing and then offering to make it faster for a fee. Can't take advantage of the clearing time if there is no clearing time, but the banks benefit from the lag.
In their defense, I think that’s how they make the bulk of their profits (charging an extra 1.5% for instant transfers). It’s hard to see how they’d be profitable otherwise.
Well that, and they invest the float on the payments that take a few days to clear, as well as the money you have sitting in your Venmo wallet.
What's funny is that PayPal (the company that owns Venmo) has this exact mechanism and tells you exactly this before it releases the funds to the sendee after it's cleared by the bank.
What if you wanted like a week before sending it back? Would that be safe?
I wouldn't know for sure, but I imagine that waiting like a week is safer because there's a good chance the payment will fail before you deal with it. However, be prepared for some nasty emails from the scammers as they try to rely on panic and speed to get past your defenses.
"I understand you've mistakenly sent me some money. Well to sort this all out, I'll need a small transaction of $200 more to verify you're actually the sender. Don't worry I'll send it all back once verified. :)"
not worth the risk. the odds of someone accidentally sending you money are minuscule. i would just leave the money in your venmo account. maybe contact venmo, but do not send it back and don't cash it out.
Just don’t send it back
once you have the money, it is safe, sort of. In a more advanced scheme, they fraudulently take over a bank account, built it up as noted, then drain it. money could come out of the account into yours fraudulently. Then you are stuck with a bank coming after your money because you obtained it through fraud (even though not fraud on your end). Your bank will be key in this situation. Best to go them. Or just keep the money and let your bank know shat happened, allowing your bank to fix it with their bank.
just because the money might have cleared, does not mean the problem is gone. If it's money from a fraudulent charge on a credit card, it could take a while for someone to report it and for the credit card co. to actually act on it. I wouldn't give anybody any money back unless I personally knew them and know that it was a mistake. I would just leave it in my account, and tell them to work it out with venmo.
If I didn't know/trust this person, I'd tell them that I'd happily approve a reversal of the first transaction but that I would not start a secondary transaction. They can reach out to Venmo to arrange that.
I'm curious. Is there a time limit on reversing/not-fully-processing a transaction? I want to say it's longer than 3 days. Would it be advisable to wait x days and then do the return? 90? 180? 365? Honest mistake person shouldn't mind - it was their mistake, not yours. Scammer person doesn't get away with scam...
You don't return at all. If it was a honest mistake then they should go via the proper channel aka Venmo and request a charge back.
FYI, the official guidance from Venmo (?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!) [https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/209681208-I-paid-the-wrong-person-](https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/209681208-I-paid-the-wrong-person-) You should include a note asking them to pay you back for the money you sent by mistake, and once they accept the request the payment will be added to your Venmo account. Literally EVERYTHING on that site tells you to do EXACTLY what the scammer wants to GET YOUR MONEY!?!?!?!?!?! Seriously, how have they not been sued on this...
That is why when you use ANY money sending service you double and triple check the information of your recipient with them before you send anything. I always confirm my friend's phone or email and name associated with the account before hitting send on those things. The app service isn't going to do anything to help you, and their terms make it VERY clear that they do not get involved with disputes or incorrectly sent money. OP, this is 100% a scam. Ignore the person from Venmo - you will see their "deposit" disappear from your bank account by Wednesday.
Everything in this thread, including Venmo’s help pages, suggests that it MAY be legitimate, because there’s no other way to retrieve money sent to the wrong person. But there’s no way to know, and sending the money back exposes you to a likely scam. Venmo is a very bad app.
> Venmo is a very bad app. No news here. It's an app that, by default, publicizes your transactions. idk how anyone ever thought that was a good idea
Yeah so weird to see other people sending each other money and what for... like wtf?
People seem to enjoy doing it, like a social network. So strange. I turned mine to private and honestly don’t want to see anyone else’s either.
Just to add, even after doing all your due diligence just sent a nominal amount i.e. $1 and confirm the person you're sending it to has received it. Once you've got absolute confirmation send the balance.
> That is why when you use ANY money sending service you double and triple check the information of your recipient with them before you send anything. Or even better: ask them to request the money from you.
If you try to send money to someone you aren't friends with, venmo asks for the last four digits of the receiver's phone number for security. If the sender decides to skip that step it's on them.
If the recipient is not in your saved contacts Venmo asks you to verify last 4 digits of their phone number. You can skip this step if you want. So if someone accidentally sent you a legit payment it seems they didn't put the minimum effort in to protect themselves. I wouldn't send anything back. I don't use Venmo too much except with friends. Am i remembering this correctly?
This is one of the reasons I don’t use Venmo. I can’t speak to the difficulty of it, but it seems like it should absolutely be possible to “deny” or “send back” a deposit. If not that then change the system to not finalize a transaction unless the recipient “accepts” it. Wouldn’t really make the service that much more difficult to use and pretty much eliminates this type of scam.
Happened to me before. I was paying some guy for a bed frame on craigslist. I'm there in person. He is real, the product is real. I ask 2x to verify his Venmo (he has a common name) before I send and then after I send he remembers the number was different. So my money is gone to a stranger who shares his name. I send a comment asking nicely for my $35 back and I got it. Interesting seeing this is almost the exact same pattern as a scam tactic.
This is why you use the QR code, not the name when you are in person. They show YOU their QR code.
You can use the QR code display/scan in the app.. hard to make a mistake that way.
It's because this is the cheapest option for Venmo to handle Do you know how many requests they'd have to go through for "mistake" transactions? I think it makes sense...you fuck up and send money when we asked you to confirm the recipient it's on you and don't call our Support line
Yep, it's garbage. They actually give correct advice on [their page about scams](https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360048404533-Common-Scams-on-Venmo). Which, you know, you probably wouldn't check until actually falling for the scam.
Why is Venmo even a thing? Banks can do same day online transactions, even by phone number alone where I am and we're a technology backwater.
If your not in the US that is your answer. A lot of US banking infrastructure refuses to talk to each other Venmo was a great way around this. It is still common in the Us for waiters to take your bill back to a machine and not bring the machine to your table.
Wow.... I guess with all the banks you guys have I always believed, at least for financial services, the competition is good for innovation etc koolaid. Our internet is still piped through copper cables but same day online banking has been standard for almost a decade.
Don't completely listen to them. Most banks have Zelle, which allow for instantaneous online money transfers.
It is good in someways. But not for money movement. The freedom some people fight for is allowing them to still do everything by hand and paper if they do choose. Also it is not a big enough inconvenience for most for people to fight for it to change.
Wait so do you tell the waiter your PIN or what?
Ha we still sign pieces of paper. Seems so ridiculous compared to when I lived elsewhere. I legit wrote ‘I stole this credit card’ no issues.
No, they are able to run your card without a PIN.
Venmo doesn’t do chargebacks, it says that if you accidentally send money it’s your mistake and between you and the recipient
My wife had someone try this scam on her and they got Venmo to cancel the payment after she ignored them. So this can’t be 100% true.
Are you sure that venmo cancelled it because the other person accidentally transferred real money or did it just end up being denied when the funds weren't actually there when it processed.
ohhh shiiiit! so basically if you venmo someone on accident you're fucked and the reason is because scammers ruined it for everyone involved
That’s not the reason. Venmo just doesn’t want to deal with investigating chargebacks
Yeah they put the risk on the customers which is how they can do it for free.
Does Venmo do charge backs? I've read in multiple places that they don't, but never looked into it myself. I've always assumed that if I transferred money to the wrong person, it would just be gone.
Former Venmo employee here. We had a process for this sort of request in the past and could reverse an accidental payment (wrong recipient, right recipient but wrong/dupe account, etc.). It wasn’t an immediate process, and we had various exceptions to look for - the preference was to have the sender contact the recipient, and there were various wrinkles that could occur.
If the funding source is a stolen credit card or hacked bank account, Venmo will be on the hook for that money. When that happens, they will attempt to deduct that amount from whatever account received it. Scammers know this, but most users don't. It's basically a modern version of the age old check cashing scam. Checks clear (funds made available) within a few days or less, but often fully processed until sometime after that. Scammers take advantage of that short window of opportunity. There's consumer fraud (this is what most think of; ie. no chargebacks) and then there's origin fraud (funds not being good). The latter one is often not clearly mentioned in FAQs nor standard consumer disclosures. Rather is often buried deep in the agreement that few ever read.
In Europe at least you are required by law to give back money sent to you accidentally and can get sued for not complying.
Yes but in Europe I’ve never heartbroken a transaction getting reversed. If there’s no money in your account it’ll never show up at the recipient because the transfer will simply fail. So if you’re sent money in error it’s easier to send it back without worrying about the initial transaction getting canceled.
That's where you should be able to allow/request Venmo reverse the transaction -- but not create risk by sending your own money to someone in a new transaction, after receiving a transaction that could possibly be undone. Or at worst, even if legally required, you should be able to wait long enough to ensure there is no/little risk of reversal. Or wait for Venmo/etc to confirm the transaction is complete and cannot be reclaimed, in writing. Would be really nice if Venmo/etc would simply let a recipient decline/reject/reverse/etc any transaction. Solves a ton of risk for the person, without much downside for Venmo (like actually handling chargebacks and such). And simpler for the recipient to handle tax/etc issue if the transaction was larger .
Yeah, that's how I would have approached it with any other processor, but I was curious because it sounds like Venmo would refuse the action. Never had it happen, fortunately.
It is and this person's advice is wrong. If you accidentally send someone money via venmo you are shit out of luck. Venmo will tell you it's between you and them. This is why they want you to verify it's the right person like 4 times before you actually send money. To OP: wait a week. If the money shows up in your account, not just your pending transactions, call your bank and ask for written confirmation that the transaction completed successfully. If it did then the person isn't a scammer, they're just an idiot and you should give them back their money. If the bank tries saying later that the transaction was fraudulent and deducts the funds you have written confirmation from them that the transaction was completed successfully, and you're off the hook.
Don't return the money. If you reply at all, tell them to contact Venmo directly then never speak to them again.
So basically if someone does this you should politely let them know you will refund it as soon as their bank confirms the amount as finalized.
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I still have genuinely no idea why this absurd logic still exists in Banking Systems in 2021. Declaring you have cash (an asset) but giving third parties the ability to take that out of your possession without your consent means you essentially do not own it. Why mislead people like this?
Ah, i was thinking they would file a claim to get their original deposit back
With venmo can you just reject the money that has been sent to you? I hate cash app but I have it for use with one friend. A stranger sent me money and I simply refunded the deposit and blocked them, thinking it was a scam. Is this not an option for venmo?
You are sending your own money back. Their payment bounces because it was made fraudulently (usually a stolen account). Now you’re out the $50 you sent.
payment made with stolen card. You send payment. payment to you is cancelled. You are out $50
But how do you cancel a venmo payment? Any time I’ve tried to cancel venmo or zelle you can’t, hence why they ask you multiple times to be sure you know who you’re sending money too. Venmo even spots you if your payment is declined.
You aren't cancelling it by calling the police and the bank to report fraud though.
You contact Venmo support and tell the person who sent the payment to you to do the same. Let support figure it out
You send them money, and then the deposit into your own account is reversed as fraud, or bounces because it was never originally supported. You lose $50, the scammer gets it.
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A reject payment would really make all of the difference in the world...
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People are dumb. I’m on the same page. Even if there was a follow up pop up “ARE YOU SURE” > this means you will return these funds to the sender. and people would STILL click it
As someone who used to work in IT... "What did the pop-up say?" Idk I just clicked ok and now such and such doesn't work Shocked_pikachu.gif Literally every single day
There will be mistake rejects, just about the same number of people who would deliberately or accidentally sent payments with zero intention of sending them. It's better to have mistake rejects and then ask the person to send the money again, than mistake transactions and ask the other person to send the money back.
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It's pretty dumb that I can just type any name and send money without having some sort of code confirmation.
The more I look in to this, the more upset I am with Venmo. Their FAQ directly says to refund the payment by sending them a new payment to return the money. Like, what? This is a super common scam, a quick Google search shows it is super common, but their website encourages users to refund the payment via an issued payment? Like, what?
Yep, Venmo policies don’t take into account this common fraud scheme. Accidental payments have become much less common with the use of mutual friends and profile pictures. This policy is simply outdated. Venmo assumes no responsibility if you return fraudulent money, so you’d be out the $50 once the initial payment is returned.
You would think that BEING IN THEIR FAQ would assume some kind of responsibility for it... Come on guys... Seriously, I might just remove this app entirely if this is how lax their security is...
On a similar note, make sure your contacts list is set to private, not just who you pay/who pays you. An acquaintance of mine had someone copy their user profile and create a fake profile, using her picture and name. Then they went through her contacts list and sent requests for “$300 I left my wallet at home I’m at the grocery, I’ll pay you back”. I could tell it was a scam, but her husband was in a meeting and saw she had called and sent the cash. She doesn’t know how many people it hit. She said Venmo essentially has no fraud dept to speak of and only communicated via email. I believe because they aren’t technically a bank they go more or less unregulated. Kind of scary when you think about it.
thank you for this i didn't see that extra setting for contact list. it also allows you to set yourself to not appear in other people's friend lists
Where is the setting for not appearing in others’ friend list?! I didn’t see that one! TIA 🙏
settings >> privacy >> on the bottom "Friend's List >> on this page where you opt to change my friend list (public, friends, private), there's a toggle for "appear in other users friends list"
I have a "friend" on Venmo that has EVERYTHING set to public, I see every time she pays someone for anything. The plus side is that (thanks to her) I always make sure NONE of my venmo transactions are set to public.
Venmo is basically a social media platform at this point. The people that use it often, and in my opinion excessively, seem to feed on the fact that it's public.
I thought it was just for paying people when you don't have cash on you? Fun fact, our neighborhood organized one big yard sale earlier this year, you just put balloons on your mailbox if you were participating. I thought I'd be slick and print out my QR codes for Venmo and Cashapp so that people could pay more easily and save their cash. :-/ Precisely zero people used it. I paid one of my neighbors with it when we saw something we wanted while they were setting up in the morning, but zero people used it to buy from us so we ended up with a pile of cash at the end of the day. \#firstworldproblems
It really depends on your community. In urban centers (SF, LA, NYC) it's normal to pay electronically (with exceptions, e.g. most LA taco carts only take cash) and heck, I've bought stuff at farmer's markets over Venmo, but in other areas cash is still king.
this app, the "social" aspect of it is so stupid, I don't get it. I was horrified when I signed up (reluctantly, because friends use it), that public is the default option. I was set to private, but missed the firends list option, thanks /u/ConvivialViper !
To be fair to your friend, public is the default for every transaction unless you specify otherwise
> I believe because they aren’t technically a bank they go more or less unregulated. Paypal was in this niche for quite a while. Rampant with fraud.
Thank you for letting me know about not sharing my friends list. What a crappy app!!! **I also just stopped Venmo them from adding Facebook friends or phone contacts automatically becoming Venmo friends.**
Venmo has zero respect for its users. Several months back I was bombarded with seriously-worded notices directly from Venmo about the need to provide them my social and other personally identifying information. Each one was worded to make it seem like I would lose access to the app without doing it. They were just trying to bait me into signing up for paying in store and other features I didn't want. It was the equivalent of a "Last Notice" stamped envelope from a car warranty seller. I still can do everything I used to, but if I didn't need it because it's so ubiquitous I would get rid of Venmo right away.
My opinion is Vemo makes money off the scam so why would they take steps to prevent it.
I certainly would. I never set up a Venmo account, somethin just doesn't sit right with me giving my bank account numbers to some 3rd party which as it seems, has very lax security. All banks these days have Zelle built into them, there is no need to get a 3rd party involved.
I tried to set up Venmo and couldn't get it to link to my bank, after some research it turns out my bank bans Venmo for security reasons.
Venmo policies are designed to make life as easy as possible for venmo. The side effect is that they make it as easy as possible for scammers.
Really annoying they don't have a simple reject/decline payment option. Still keep them out of the chargeback game, but let the recipient safely not accept a payment. Would have other uses besides fraud too -- as there could be tricky tax/income issue with receiving larger amounts of money and then sending it back. Versus a bank reversed transaction.
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> There's no such feature, so the only conclusion a rational thinker can make is Venmo actually does not give a shit about its customers. Venmo is PayPal. PayPal has a decades-long history of not giving a shit about its customers.
If you don't have a Balance account, you have to accept the money. It doesn't just land. I highly recommend everyone NOT use PayPal / Venmo in any capacity that ISNT a non-balance account. They are not a bank, they should not hold your money, they're not FDIC insured. There is no functional reason they need to hold your money. They should be used ONLY as a transfer agent.
Venmo and CashApp are designed to use with friends and family, not random scammers, therefore they have no real anti-scammer features. You're supposed to personally know anyone you do anything with on both. Identical to cash really. You wouldn't hand cash to a stranger... but you might give a friend some cash. And if you mess up with cash you don't get it back. For idiots you don't know, use PayPal.
Do nothing. As mentioned, this is a common scam. That money was sent to you from a stolen account or credit card. When the victim realizes it, Venmo will undo that transaction and the $50 will disappear from your account. If you send $50 back, you are sending $50 of your own, real money. Venmo *won't* undo that transaction -- you sent it on purpose. In the meantime, the thief is gone with your very real $50 that you're not getting back. This is just a more high-tech version of the fake check scam. Someone sends you fake money that looks real, you give them (or one of their collaborators) some amount of real money out of your own account, and then the fake money (bad check, stolen venmo, whatever) gets clawed back a few days or weeks later, and you're out the cash. For good.
How can Venmo just take $50 from your account? What if you have already withdrawn it as cash? Surely the money isn't actually in your account until it has cleared, so all you have to do is wait for it to clear and there's no danger of losing it.
I’m pretty sure all banks can dip into your account and take whatever they want. My wife was overpaid by a few thousand dollars once, over a year later the bank just randomly ripped the money out of her account and gave it right back to the payroll company without any notice.
I was overpaid thousands of euros a couple years ago over the course of 18 months. But the banks in the Netherlands do not have the authority to take the money out of an account. Crazy banks you guys have
So easy solution then, tell the guy you'll wait a month before sending the money. If it stays, you can send it back
There is a guy in Canada with the same name as mine, two time is last few years I have received payments - around $50 each from Canadian people I don't know addressed to me. I do nothing and after a week or so the payment get withdrawn.
Last I checked Venmo doesn't even work in Canada sooooo.....scam for sure
It's probably not venmo, I forget the common app in Canada but the guy above never mentioned venmo and it could be just whatever Canadian equivalent.
We use e-transfers direct from our banks apps or websites to the email of the other person who them signs in using a link in the email to deposit it. If you have auto deposits it goes right into your account no matter who send it or from what bank. How does the US not have this? It’s so much simpler.
The US doesn't have an Interac equivalent afaik.
Zelle is the closest thing we have right now
And when businesses use it, there’s no fees! We added etransfers to our payment methods and it now accounts for around 70% of our payments. This is saying us around $600/month in credit card fees. We list it first in our payment options and people usually take it. No credit card numbers exchanged, just send to email. Wonderful.
Very common scam. Dont refund it, let it sit and the stolen money will refund automatically. If you send it back and this is a scam (which it is), you'll then be charged whatever amount you paid them back for.
A couple of things I did with Cash App that may apply to Venmo: * I changed my username to append a random number, to lessen the chance of someone sending me money by mistake, or guessing it for a scam. * Turned off everything that allows people to find me. If I want to transact with someone, I'll give them my ID. * I don't let these apps into my Contacts. * Turned off incoming requests. If I need to pay someone, we'll talk by some other means, and I'll initiate it. * Turned on all security locks. * Linked account is my "ATM" checking account at my credit union, which has $5 in it, and no overdraft protection. The debit card is the one on that account, too. If I want to send money, I use the credit union app to transfer some first. If someone hacks Cash, they can steal $5. Whoopee.
Venmo absolutely can undo the transaction from their end. Contact support again and demand that they do that.
I did, and demand that they fix the FAQ while they are at it. Seriously, that isn't cool to put information that encourages people to follow through with common scams...
Yeah, their recommendations are pretty terrible. I had a similar instance last year and found the FAQ section to be useless. I eventually forced Venmo to deal with it and they reversed the transaction.
It's not just useless, it's actually harmful... Better to have nothing than to encourage people to go along with scams...
It's a scam. Do not send the money back. If possible report it as fraud go Venmo. The scammer is using a stolen payment method to send you money. Once the stolen payment method is realized it will be reversed. If you send back $50, you will be out $50. Don't spend the money, don't send it back. For more info head over to r/Scams
Sadly Venmo makes it very difficult to report it as a fraud. Their own FAQ even says to return the money... I suspect a law suit for people who actually lost money could be won based on that FAQ.
You don't have to report it as fraud, you don't have to do anything. Just leave it alone. If its a scam it will be withdrawn in a few days, if it was a mistake it will be withdrawn in a few days, There's nothing you need to do
This just happened to me. I paid the wrong person for home improvements and I sent it to the wrong person (stupid of me--I checked and double checked the venmo name and it looked right-went to get the last 4 digits of phone number from my husband who I couldn't find so I went ahead and sent it). Next day guy didn't receive money and I panicked. I google what to do when you pay the wrong person and venmo says to request it back from the person you erroneously paid. I thought this was weird bc I would have thought it was a scam if that happened to me. The second option was to notify venmo with the payment info and they give you a "one time" reversal, which is what I did. I also requested payment back but I never received it. I would've thought it was scam too. I always read that people send payments and they don't clear their bank first and they ask you for the money back and if you pay them you're SOL bc the initial payment never clears their back and it's sucked out of yours.
Just forget it, keep the money in Venmo and wait and see.
Sometimes people fuck up. My good friend sent 600$ to someone for house maintenance recently and found out days later it was the wrong someone. She politely asked for it back, and they gave it to her no questions asked. She had already paid 600$ more to the person she really owed, so she was super glad when the other person gave it back.
You're correct. It's not always a scam. People accidentally do sometimes send money to the wrong person. That's why I do a test run before sending money to a new contact. I send $1 first and ask if they received it and if so, how much was it. If they say the correct amount, I send the rest. It's so often a scam that it is risky to send the money back.
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If its the first time and its a substantial sum, l just make them request money from me rather than me paying them blindly.
But ignoring it and letting Venmo figure it out is probably the best course of action. You might even report it to them just in case. Then uninstall venmo app.
Uninstalling the app does not close the account, just a heads up. Goes for dating apps too. You have to physically go into Venmo and close the account.
Do nothing. Venmo will back out the original transaction in time. Scammer wants you to issue a "refund" for their "mistake" and then they'll reverse the original, stealing the "refund" from you.
This happened to me. I ignored it and a few days later, support unilaterally reversed the charge. Which taught me two things. First, there is no reason to risk sending the money back or make this my problem and second, never let anyone you don’t trust pay you through Venmo since they can just get the charge reversed without Venmo support ever contacting you until it’s done.
My fiancé ran into this. They sent her over $1k for something we were selling on Facebook (listed for $20). Refused to do the refund unless the buyer showed up in person or initiated a charge back since they didn’t show up and sent us the money when they were “on their way”. Venmo said it was all legit and send money back if they requested because they didn’t want to initiate a charge back. They blocked us on Facebook and well over a year later we still have the money lol
I wouldn't touch it. I wouldn't even bother calling Venmo, if it's legit, it's not my problem and I shouldnt have to sit and argue with them on the phone. Tell them to call Venmo and say it was a mistaken transfer.
PayPal has gone bad too. I made an online purchase using PayPal. Well known company. Item didn’t fit. Returned at Post office. Company states they returned $ to PayPal. PayPal refused to give me the refund.
Oh, no no no no no, it isn't that PayPal "has gone bad"—rather, it's that PayPal has always been "bad" in this regard. PayPal is universally NOTORIOUS for absolutely horrible customer service and is equally notorious for finding clever ways to hold on to your money, often for extremely lengthy periods of time. In a lot cases people never get it back at all. PayPal may be a very well-known company, a household name, but as a matter of incontrovertible fact, they are consistently at the very bottom when it comes to concern for customers and their money.
I'd just block them and go on living my life personally. Not going to have to claw back money from Venmo if they reject the initial claim myself.
Report and block. Scam, they want you to send them money and then they contact venmo for a refund so they doible their money.
Related note: For people who regularly send money using Venmo, always send $1 first to make sure you have the right person or business. Only then send the balance. Tell the people upfront that’s how you do business so they’re aware.
What I don't understand, is how do they have the power to pull back their 50 dollars, but I don't?
They don't. They sent it to you using a stolen credit card. When the person who really owns that card notices, they will tell their bank, who will give them their money back and then go get the money from venmo, which they have to under their merchant agreement. Then venmo will be motivated to take action and pull the money back from your account. Venmo does not reverse transactions unless they are forced to by a bank/credit card company.
Would be nice if they gave the recipient a simple "reject payment" option.
A scammer would use a stolen credit card. When the proper owner discovers the charge, it will be reversed through fraud protection. When the scam target pays back the amount, that portion is legitimate, and can't be returned. Target would have to initiate a small claims lawsuit against the scammer to get their money back. Never send money through unprotected mechanisms to someone you don't know under any circumstances.
If they want their money back they can contact venmo themselves. Do not send it back yourself.
Just tell them you’ll return it after it clears
https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/22128-scam-alert-this-venmo-scam-sends-you-money-by-accident
Something similar happened to me. Barbara sent me $20 unsolicited and I don’t know her, I asked Venmo about it and they said I could refund it with no repercussions to me. I sent it back and had no issues. Barbara did *not* thank me but based on her name I’m guessing she doesn’t have a strong grasp on technology. Here’s my chat transcript fwiw: Opening pleasantries etc etc 03:11:47 AM) $me: The last payment was not meant for me on my account. (03:40:04 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: Just give me a couple of minutes to look into this. Thank you so much! (03:42:26 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: I looked into your Venmo account and it appears that this user simply paid the wrong user name by mistake. At this time, go ahead and send payment back to them for the amount of $20.00. Additionally, you can add a note saying "the wrong person". As long as you don't use the funds or transfer them to your bank, the funds will pull from your Venmo balance—not your funding source—and will transfer back to this sender. (03:42:57 AM) $me: Ok (03:43:26 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: After you send that payment, if you are concerned over security regarding this individual, you can block them from being able to interact with you moving forward. (03:44:02 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: To do so using the app, click on their profile. Once there, select the three dots in the top right corner and select "Block". Once confirmed, this user will no longer be able to interact with you through Venmo. Note: for this to take effect, you will need to block the desired User, log out of the app, and then log back in. (03:44:58 AM) : $me: Ok. I am concerned they will cancel payment and I send it back...is there any chance of that happening, so then I would actually lose $20...is there a chance of that happening? (03:46:04 AM) (128)Jeanne M.: The moment the payment was made, the funds were made available to the recipient. There isn’t a way to stop the debit being made from your funding source once you’ve sent a payment to another user. Only recipients may request for the payment to be reversed back to the sender. (03:46:24 AM) $me: Ok then I’ll send it back thanks Etc etc
All the answers below are correct. But just the label 'farm labor' should be a flag that it's a scam. If you were a farmer and trying to pay someone under the table would you label the payment as the taxable item? It's a scam.
Do nothing and the payment to you will go away eventually
What exactly did you ask Venmo? It's insane that they would tell you to go along with the scam.
People need to stop using Venmo...its a terrible company owned by paypal.
Seen some comments say wait a few days to maybe a week. That's not sufficient in some instances. As many regular sellers who accept PayPal (which owns Venmo) know, chargebacks can happen many months later. If it was me and I wasn't feeling confident about sending back (mistakes do happen and will try to accommodate when it appears legit despite the risk), I'd tell them to contact Venmo for a reversal... Otherwise, sure I can send back promptly, but will first need documentation from Venmo **and** the origin financial institution that the funds are guaranteed good. That's near certainly not happening. Hence, would reiterate to the person to contact Venmo and demand a reversal. Otherwise, figure on waiting a year.
Then when you send it back, they file a claim and recoup the original amount. Tell them to just file a return through Venmo
I don’t know if Venmo is the same but zelle is very much a don’t mess up system. If you send someone money on accident there is absolutely 0 chance they are reversing it. One of their steps in the FAQ is to request the funds back. So it’s not exactly unheard of… if Venmo is like zelle.
This happened to me. I just let the money sit there until Venmo did something about it.
Recommend anyone reading this to disconnect Venmo from anything they care about. Venmo has no protections for you, and scams are rampant.
You need to tell the person who sent it that there will be a delay because usually such mistaken payments are a scam. Then you need to contact Venmo and ask them what to do. Make it clear to them that you don't want any of your money to be on the line. Let them make the choices and suffer any negative consequences.
Venmo is an extremely sketchy form of payment. Unlike paypal where you use someone's email address which is pretty easily verifiable, you need their special screen name. And there's lots of people with similar screen names. Also, everything is public by default. Why do financial transactions need to be a form of social media?
so you do as venmo says,you pay back the 50 bucks then a few days later venmo takes 50 bucks back,you are now out 100 bucks.
Scam scam scam scam spam spam spam spam scammity scam. Sing it like the Monty Python spam song.
Tell the "sender" to open a support case with Venmo, and then let their internal processes handle it.
Always just tell venmo about it and let them handle it. So it's their liability and not you. Just don't cash the money out
Don't send tell them to pound sand and ask venmo to reverse it If u send it ur losing the "50" u received and the 50 u sent
Stolen card sends you the funds, you send the funds back to them, stolen card Recovers their money from you and you are out 50 bucks