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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

#91

Post by function_seven »

Paul-ish wrote: post #72
cortesoft wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is so ridiculous that the comment for a payment would be used against someone. Writing jokes in the 'for' line on a check is a time honored tradition when paying your friends money. I don't want to live in a world where I am not allowed to make jokes because it might get me a visit from the FBI.

Why is it important to put jokes there? I view a check as a pseudo-legal document. Do you slip jokes into the contracts you sign?

A long time ago, checks had to be deposited at a bank counter, in person. If I wanted to embarrass my payee, I'd write something risque or vulgar in the memo line. That way they would have to suffer that embarrassment if they wanted my money.

Yeah, it's juvenile. I don't understand why the FBI would care though. There's a 0% chance that a real terrorist is writing "ISIS" on their checks to fund terror.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#92

Post by Apocryphon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #68
ShabbosGoy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an odd thing for a bank to do, police how someone uses a memo line in a check. At least you got your revenge on them.

It's my understanding that Venmo will flag transactions with certain words in the memo. "I Tried to Venmo $12.66 for 'ISIS' and the Government Was Pissed It turns out the Treasury Department doesn't appreciate my sense of humor." https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5gqyzd/i-tried-to-venmo-1...

Ironic given how Softcard used to be called Isis.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#93

Post by froindt »

closeparen wrote: post #59
booleandilemma wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when “the wrong word could get you in trouble”: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_571f8057e4b01a5ebde34b97/...

A friend in college got a fun letter from the Comptroller of the Currency after writing “A Night in Tehran” on a reimbursement for Iranian food in Chicago.

Did that happen to be the name of the restaurant?

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#94

Post by BookmarkSaver »

Guys, people aren't "exposing their finances" on Venmo. People don't use it to buy stuff, or pay off CC bills, or anything. Nor are the transaction amounts exposed.

It's used for balancing payments/debts between individuals. I don't consider "A paid B for brunch yesterday" or "X paid Y for Rent+cable" in any way to be "exposing finances". It's just another random (albeit unnecessary) social network, one that takes literally no effort to use or disable.

Shocking, young people don't care if others know that they went out to dinner with some friends. It's amazing to me that this level of exposure seems "nuts" to you all and leaves you "speechless". Like, how paranoid and antisocial are you all? Who cares about this stuff? Or is this all just some crazy slippery-slope thing going on in your heads?

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#95

Post by Zarath »

fermienrico wrote: post #37

In this thread - "You can do X to make it private." In my view, that is not addressing the main issue with Venmo. Socializing financial transactions shouldn't have taken off from back of the napkin stage. It is simply unbelievable on 2 fronts: 1) Such an app exists and is doing fine 2) People simply do not care about their privacy. I am utterly speechless. Who in the right mind opens up Venmo to just browse what kind…

I use Venmo and immediately set my preferences to private. Admittedly though, I will browse through the public transactions of my friends out of interest in what they are up to.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#96

Post by rconti »

gnicholas wrote: post #10

When I first created a Venmo account, I was shocked to see users' payments flowing through my feed and immediately found a way to make my payments private. But I could never find a way to effectively unlink the social media account (FB) that I had used to find my first friend/payee. I think I unlinked the account, but I still see payments from all the people that Venmo made me follow as a result of linking the now-un…

I'm utterly perplexed that Venmo is even a thing.

When I first started hearing about it maybe 5-6 years ago, I just figured, I already have PayPal and Square Cash, I'm too old, nobody I know uses Venmo, why bother.

I've mostly ignored that it existed except occasionally hearing (usually younger) folks talking about it.

A couple of months ago I was telling some people at work that I'm too old for it, and Square Cash works well enough for me, and commented that I can't see how a newcomer could be any easier than just having the money go directly into my bank account.

When a coworker informed me that Venmo payments stay in your account, my exasperated reply was "wait, it's WORSE than Square Cash? It's like going back to PayPal?" Well, you can imagine how incredulous I was when I found out that Venmo IS PayPal, just with different branding.

For the past 5 years I've been assuming Venmo is something new and cool that "the kids" are using, but I'm too out of touch to bother, and suddenly I find out it's a rebranding of PayPal with all of the drawbacks of it. It blows my mind that something caught traction that is functionally worse than the competitor of the product it's a rebranding of!

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#97

Post by bas »

gkoberger wrote: post #46
kinsomo wrote: post #2

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

Hmm, I think most people use it to pay friends back for brunch or drinks. It's not like you're streaming all your credit card purchases. It's kinda like checking in on Foursquare with friends... it's a public way to expose your social graph a bit. It may not be for you, but people love social media. To put it a different way: it's so successful because, despite there being lots of ways to pay back friends, none of th…

> it's a public way to expose your social graph a bit.

Why is this a thing?

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#98

Post by rconti »

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #87
gkoberger wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I think most people use it to pay friends back for brunch or drinks. It's not like you're streaming all your credit card purchases. It's kinda like checking in on Foursquare with friends... it's a public way to expose your social graph a bit. It may not be for you, but people love social media. To put it a different way: it's so successful because, despite there being lots of ways to pay back friends, none of th…

>it's so successful because, despite there being lots of ways to pay back friends It was far and away the simplest and easiest way to quickly transfer money electronically, at least around ~6 years ago. The "big players" that have payment apps either weren't launched or were just getting started, and PayPal just had/has this bizarre level of BS required for a process that should just take like 2 or 3 simple steps. No…

I've been told Venmo works exactly like PayPal, which is to say it's a 2 step process to get money from your Venmo account into your actual checking/savings account. So that would make it just as usable as the, what, 20-year-old PayPal, and worse than Square Cash. Am I misinformed?

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#99

Post by triangleman »

rconti wrote: post #96
gnicholas wrote: post #10

When I first created a Venmo account, I was shocked to see users' payments flowing through my feed and immediately found a way to make my payments private. But I could never find a way to effectively unlink the social media account (FB) that I had used to find my first friend/payee. I think I unlinked the account, but I still see payments from all the people that Venmo made me follow as a result of linking the now-un…

I'm utterly perplexed that Venmo is even a thing. When I first started hearing about it maybe 5-6 years ago, I just figured, I already have PayPal and Square Cash, I'm too old, nobody I know uses Venmo, why bother. I've mostly ignored that it existed except occasionally hearing (usually younger) folks talking about it. A couple of months ago I was telling some people at work that I'm too old for it, and Square Cash w…

Well it's PayPal without the fees.

Re: People using Venmo to spy on cheating spouses

#100

Post by rconti »

triangleman wrote: post #99
rconti wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm utterly perplexed that Venmo is even a thing. When I first started hearing about it maybe 5-6 years ago, I just figured, I already have PayPal and Square Cash, I'm too old, nobody I know uses Venmo, why bother. I've mostly ignored that it existed except occasionally hearing (usually younger) folks talking about it. A couple of months ago I was telling some people at work that I'm too old for it, and Square Cash w…

Well it's PayPal without the fees.

"Friends and Family" payments are also without fees.

I can't think of any fees I've ever paid to PayPal other than for eBay transactions and the like -- though it's of course possible Venmo has different rate structures and thresholds.

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