Final thoughts on Venmo

“Venmo Me” has become a phrase that I hear constantly as a college student. Whether it is something as simple as paying someone back for an Uber ride or splitting the bill at dinner, Venmo is an apparent part of my college experience. Millennials began this trend of using an app to transfer money, referred to as peer-to-peer app-payment systems. Passing money to others through an app eliminates the need of checks or cash and has made getting money back faster and easier. Most wouldn’t consider it a part of social media, however Venmo is a lot like other popular social media apps including Instagram and Facebook. Social media is a nice way to stay in touch with others, but it takes away a certain aspect of every user’s privacy, as it gives others an intimate look at our personal lives. Today’s generation is so used to sharing their every move online, they don’t realize the rights they are giving up. By looking at a person’s posts, you can tell where they’re from, who they are friends with, where they eat out, what their hobbies are, etc. The information that goes on most profiles gives hackers an open invitation. Some apps can be even scarier, Venmo for instance gives people opportunities to steal money through social media. The app Venmo allows users to transfer money to others quickly and easily, which is the cause of many people being tricked into paying imposters, or have had their accounts hacked. The company of Venmo seems quite dangerous, as they do not answer emails quickly and do not have a phone number to call in the case of fraud. The easiness of the app draws the public in, and influences them to give away their privacy through the social aspect of Venmo. The public needs to take precautions and be aware of the possibilities of account fraud, hacking, identity theft, or stalking.

The way that the public uses social media in today’s’ society could be harmful to your safety and your bank account. App-payments, apps that allow users to pass money to others through their phone, are a type of social media. The app-payment gives people an idea of what everyone is doing and spending their money on, just as twitter or Instagram would. Many people don’t carry cash on them, so paying through their phones is so effortless and less awkward when owing people money. Specifically Venmo gives hackers an opportunity to see what we spend our time and money on. This influences the occurrence of fraudulent endeavors. It is essential to prioritize your safety online by creating strong passwords, making profiles private, keeping the posting to a minimum, and keeping locations confidential. As a social media user, I know that when creating an account on most sites, a birthday, email, and sometimes phone number is required. Having this information online makes it easier for a hacker to guess a password. A key role in staying safe with social media is creating a strong password that won’t easily be guessed by anyone who can see your account information. The “forgotten password” option can be scary in this aspect, because with a little snooping, a security question could easily be guessed. Once someone gets ahold of your email account, they have a greater possibility getting into all of your accounts, some including banking apps, like Venmo.

Venmo, which handled $17.6 billion in the past year, requires its users to write a memo which describes the transfer, compensating for record keeping. Creating a memo takes away a user’s privacy by giving other users of the app an idea of what is happening in that person’s life. The app gives attention to a person’s private life, whether someone is paying another back for multiple uber rides, meals, or simply giving a “surprise-Venmo” with a memo stating “Just because I love you.” Emojis are often used in the memo line, which hides the fact that it is a formal transaction (pizza being the most commonly used emoji.) This could be a bad thing, as aspects of privacy are taken away once they show the users on the app what they are spending their money on. You can even request money from someone on your phone, which gives that friend an invoice. Friendships have become transactional​ as you pay friends back right down to the penny. This process of transferring exact change via phone causes people to be more of business partners than friends. Splitting the check​ evenly used to be the hospitable thing to do, as older generations would fight over who gets to pay after a dinner. Millennials have become cheap and do not care if people are judging them for making a friend pay them back.

As you are signing up for Venmo, you have the option to link your bank, credit card, or debit card. Some say those options are specifically set up in that order to persuade the user into the more riskier option, which would be linking the bank account. There is a 3% fee when using a credit card, so this would also encourage the user into using the other options, potentially increasing the chance of fraudulent activities. Students from an institute in Massachusetts claimed that the social part of Venmo makes users more susceptible to hacking. Speaking from personal experience, I have almost sent money to the wrong person because there was an account similar to the one I was searching for. Since Venmo’s settings can easily be changed, it benefits anyone trying to impersonate another. Recently the new app called Zelle, a payment app ran by the U.S. banking industry, has been competing with Venmo. It is said that rather than taking two business days to transfer money into your account, Zelle will do it in a matter of minutes! It has also been stated that you will only have to enter information like a phone number or email to use the app. Zelle seems to be a more secure way of transferring money via phone, and has had no issues with fraud.

There are many holes in Venmo’s security system that people overlook because they are so entranced by the easiness of the app. There are about four steps that a user will take when creating a Venmo account, which will bring in more people if they know that it won’t take long to set everything up. Sending or gaining money is also a fast process, so the entire idea of being able to pay people via an app is enticing. What is bad about this easiness is that it proves the app’s questionable security; a user’s information may be more susceptible to fraudulent activity. Instances that deal with fraud may be when selling an item to a stranger online. Venmo will tell the user “they paid you”, when really, the money does not transfer over for a few days. This gives the scammer the opportunity to cancel their payment, scamming you out of the item you sold to them. An easy fix for this would be for the company to make the notification say “they have began the process of paying you.”

As a majority of Venmo’s users are college students, many of them don’t realize that their information is not very well protected. Slate magazine published an article called “Venmo Money, Venmo Problems,”​ which described the trendiness of the quickly growing app “Venmo”, and its lack of security. It would be terrifying to wake up and realize that thousands of dollars have been transferred out of your bank account unknowingly. As the article from Slate begins, the writer states that there have been multiple instances in which someone’s Venmo account has been hacked, password and email changed, and almost $3,000 transferred to a stranger. In these cases, the users have gone to the “contact us” option that Venmo gives, but are taken back because there is no actual phone number to call. Venmo had about 70 full-time employees in November of 2016, but the only customer service that Venmo offers is an email service that is extremely slow at responding. Venmo did not notify the user when his account settings were changed. The only way that this user found out his account had been hacked was when he got a message saying that a large sum of money had been taken out of his Venmo account.

In another article from Slate called “Venmo Scammers Know Something You Don’t,”​ there was a story about a man selling pricey NBA tickets through Venmo. Long story short, after he had given the stranger the tickets, the Venmo transaction was reversed. He immediately sent an email to Venmo’s customer service but received no response back. On Venmo’s security section, under “Keep yourself Safe” it states “Avoid payments to people you don’t know, especially if it involves a sale for goods and services (like event tickets and Craigslist items).” Whenever instances like this happen, Venmo rarely gets you your money back, as “Venmo does not offer buyer or seller protection.” Venmo’s lack of security has a lot to do with the quickness and easiness of the app.

While Venmo has the highest ratings for “app-payments”, banks and other companies like Google and Facebook are initiating their own online payment transferring network. With this incorporated, there will eventually be no need for credit cards. As this bank system will be centered on gaining the demand of older people, it will need to ensure the security of the system. The mainstream crowd may be skeptical about online transactions keeping their accounts safe and private. Widely known banks across the United States including Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, have been consulting about creating a collective payment transfer system​ called Zelle. Zelle will allow anyone who is a client of said bank to transfer money simply via a phone number or email address. Older people people seem to be skeptical about the app-payment system because it takes away a certain part of your privacy, while also causing people to be less generous with their money.

Privacy is something that everyone is entitled to. Through these apps and online mechanisms, privacy will be completely lost and the use of hard money will eventually be eliminated. Each of the articles I have linked similarly reference how app-payments display the cheapness of friends, while also creating the possibility of account fraud and privacy loss. Social media takes away privacy by suggesting how someone’s relationship is going, who someone may be living with, or even if friends are hanging out without you. A future employer may see your scandalous photos or your risky transactions on Venmo. One of the biggest reasons that people distrust apps like Venmo is because it is required to enter a bank account into the app in order to transfer money into it. As many Millennials seem to care less about their privacy, this is not a contributing factor to their use of the app, but could be for older people. It is hypothesized that 35 percent of Americans will be using this payment option by 2020. Peer-to-peer payment systems have already grown so much already, as Venmo was started in 2009. Though this concept of app-payment is questionable for fraud and privacy, these apps have become the societal norm for many Millennials and it is hoped that other generations get on board as well. The Venmo company obviously has no care for its users if there is no direct way to contact about a problem. I enjoy knowing that a company cares for me, so in this aspect, I think that people should stop endorsing Venmo as much as they do. As a Venmo user, researching this topic has made me more aware of the possibilities of hacking; It has changed my perspective on the entire company, and has made me question deleting the app entirely.