Caveat Venmo

[Craig Good]

Since I was the one who, a while back posted about Venmo as a possible way of divvying up the check at dinners, I feel obliged to pass along the reason why I will likely delete the app without ever having used it.

First I saw a posting about how several videographers in the LA area have had tens of thousands of dollars worth of video equipment stolen by a ring using Venmo. The tl;dr is that they exploit the fine print and end up getting the victim's account shut down as well as taking the gear.

How the scam works in another context is presented in this Slate article.

Meanwhile, PayPal remains safe, or at least has anti-fraud mechanisms.