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People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

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Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#171

Post by stordoff »

Fnoord wrote: post #124
SilasX wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is annoying how stuff on Facebook is by default shared with "Public", It does? Mine currently defaults to "friends", and I'm pretty sure the default is just "whatever your last choice was" -- if I set my last one to public, then next time the default value is public.

Yes, that's the default when you start (which is bad). The default is furthermore like you said "whatever your last choice was". Which is bloody annoying. As if some terribly dumb AI is trying to understand what my motive is. If I always post for X, and then make an exception, then I don't want that exception again next time. Why would I? So if I always post "for friends", for example, and then one time I post "for f…

> The default is furthermore like you said "whatever your last choice was". Which is bloody annoying. As if some terribly dumb AI is trying to understand what my motive is. If I always post for X, and then make an exception, then I don't want that exception again next time.

I'm not sure I agree - if I change a setting, I want it to _stay_ changed (and if it's a one-time change, it's easy enough to change back). Imagine approaching it from the other angle - it's easy to see the headlines "Facebook trying to revert your privacy settings" (especially I imagine more people will be making changes to be more restrictive--from whatever Facebook's defaults are to what they are comfortable with).

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#172

Post by jasonjayr »

iamjaredwalters wrote: post #160
pacetherace wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial transactions are covered by a lot of complex laws and regulations. A bad joke may end up costing a lot of time and money to clear your name. It is equivalent to prank calling cops and telling them that a friend sexually assaulted you. Usually, stupid financial transactions bite you at the most inopportune times like when you apply for home mortgages or deal with immigration issues.

Drawing a comparison between a comment sent to a friend (a communication between two parties that ostensibly know each other) and prank calling the cops is a bit far fetched.

You are not wrong, but anytime you involve a third party in your transaction, especially when it comes to money, they take responsibility for that transfer, and ensuring it complies with all relevant laws.

Cash is still king.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#173

Post by coupdejarnac »

iamjaredwalters wrote: post #162
coupdejarnac wrote: post #141

Add me to the list of people who were horrified to see a social feed when I signed up for Venmo. Ain't no way I'm ever going to use it. Though I suppose it would be interesting to see what other people are paying for/getting paid for. Perhaps I know some drug dealers or "professional girlfriends", etc.

You may be disappointed. Drug dealers and professional girlfriends are likely still uninterested in paper trails and paying taxes on income.

You say that as if there aren't thousands of examples out there.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#174

Post by lyricaljoke »

tbrownaw wrote: post #163
chillacy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point there are too many network effects around venmo, if you're splitting the BBQ with 5 people and 4 have venmo and you don't, it's not as convenient for the requester. That's why I got venmo initially, and now it's super easy to request money from friends and 2nd degree friends, since my network is all venmo. I know 1 person who uses square cash and he's over 40, and I know 2 or 3 less tech-literate friend…

I feel like I'm missing something here. If I go out somewhere with a bunch of friends, we just ask for separate checks.

Works well unless:

- the restaurant doesn't do separate checks for large groups - friends ordered meals with significant variance in case, and the server wasn't initially told to keep items separated - you want to split communal items in an arbitrary fashion

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#175

Post by harryh »

kinsomo wrote: post #2

It boggles my mind that anyone would want to stream their payment history publicly.

It's not hard to understand. My feed is mostly "friends only" but there are a few public posts too, let's have a look:

https://venmo.com/harryh

    1. Tickets for a band. That's cool.
    2. Clearly something amusing about jail.
    3. A computer. Computers are fun.
    4. MEAT
    5. Sci Fi movies. Movies are fun.
People do this for the same reason they use twitter or facebook or instagram. To share what they are doing in their life with their friends. Most payments aren't top secret stuff, they're just little notes about people's social life.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#176

Post by icedchai »

tbrownaw wrote: post #163
chillacy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point there are too many network effects around venmo, if you're splitting the BBQ with 5 people and 4 have venmo and you don't, it's not as convenient for the requester. That's why I got venmo initially, and now it's super easy to request money from friends and 2nd degree friends, since my network is all venmo. I know 1 person who uses square cash and he's over 40, and I know 2 or 3 less tech-literate friend…

I feel like I'm missing something here. If I go out somewhere with a bunch of friends, we just ask for separate checks.

Me too. This is not a problem I've ever encountered.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#177

Post by smelendez »

tbrownaw wrote: post #163
chillacy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point there are too many network effects around venmo, if you're splitting the BBQ with 5 people and 4 have venmo and you don't, it's not as convenient for the requester. That's why I got venmo initially, and now it's super easy to request money from friends and 2nd degree friends, since my network is all venmo. I know 1 person who uses square cash and he's over 40, and I know 2 or 3 less tech-literate friend…

I feel like I'm missing something here. If I go out somewhere with a bunch of friends, we just ask for separate checks.

I think "splitting the BBQ" as in someone is buying and cooking a bunch of food and their friends are helping with the cost.

But anyway, some restaurants don't split checks and most don't like to because it's extra work for their staff.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#178

Post by lyricaljoke »

What a lot of people miss about the utility of Venmo is that it lowers the social cost of squaring up minor debts.

Think of the example of a large group of friends often gathers in arbitrary subsets of the group to go to dinner. If Alice orders salad every time and Bob orders steak, and we split it down the middle each time, that kind of sucks for Alice. Some people suggest rotating picking up the entire bill between outings, but I'm unconvinced that this really ends up working out equitably in practice.

Or, say Dora has a habit of leaving happy hour after the first round, which was picked up by Charlie. It's not a huge cost, but...

In a world without instant electronic payment, the meek Alices and Charlies of the world lose out because there's a social cost to asking somebody to repay a small debt (paying <$10 by cash is a hassle). By making these frictionless, I'd argue that Venmo reduces that cost by providing an easy way to equitably split without levying the inconvenience on the restaurant, as with separate checks.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#179

Post by iamjaredwalters »

coupdejarnac wrote: post #173
iamjaredwalters wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be disappointed. Drug dealers and professional girlfriends are likely still uninterested in paper trails and paying taxes on income.

You say that as if there aren't thousands of examples out there.

You have thousands of drug dealers and prostitutes in your feed?!

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#180

Post by adjkant »

As someone who uses Venmo regularly and with friends who all have accounts they use regularly, to summarize many of the points below:

1. No one asked for this. This is Paypal trying to make a payments app social and people staying for the payments app despite the social feed.

2. So long as you can change the defaults, no one cares about if the company has sane default settings etc. Millenials / Gen Z care about privacy and most of my friends default to private. A company's defaults is not reflective of the privacy concerns of users because they know they have the better product.

3. Venmo messages are often jokes and payment amounts aren't shown even when public/friends

https://qz.com/359903/the-emoji-of-venmo/

4. Square just didn't catch on and Venmo's integration with other apps makes it locked in (Splitwise and Tab to name two main ones. My friends refer to Venmo and those two as the payments holy trinity)

5. This article is crap and no one I know looks at the feed. If you're dumb enough to cheat and use a public Venmo payment, wow. When I hit it on the splash page I see payments from a few people, nothing more interesting than pizza, rent, or utilities. Incredible, I know people have basic functions! The privacy invasion!

6. Most people I know transfer to their bank immediately. The intermediary step is a pain but far less than using any other payment service. I'll get over not earning my .03% interest at my bank and letting Venmo skim the interest on their end to keep the service free. Yes customer service is crap and so is Paypal generally but the reality is that it removes far more pain in life than it creates.

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