I use Venmo between family and friends on a regular basis, and it has been a staple when it comes to instantly splitting costs and paying people back. I really enjoy that it’s seamless and fee-free when you link a checking account to the app.
If you don’t already know, you can pretty much input whatever you want in the description box, and it’s funny seeing what other people are sending money for when I scroll through the Venmo public feed.
Of course most of it is done to be funny and playful, but just a word of caution – be careful about what you put in the description, because it could result in someone having a frozen account.
How do I know this? Well first of all, in one instance, a friend told me that her account became frozen when she used the description “Cuba” in a totally harmless way (she was sending her share of an Airbnb to the friend who made the original booking).
Venmo immediately flagged the transaction under the assumption that she was illegally sending money to Cuba, but she was able to have her account unfrozen after a few calls and emails explaining that she really was paying a portion of an Airbnb stay.
Just recently, I experienced something similar when I was the cause of my best friend’s account suspension. I owed her some money, so I put “sexy time” or something along those lines in the description box, and a few hours later, my friend’s account was frozen under the reason that she was selling “professional services” (!!).
Of course, it was clearly a [bad] joke on my end, and IÂ felt so terrible that my stupidity resulted in her locked account. What was even worse was the fact that she had a balance of $510 sitting in her Venmo account that she was not entirely sure she would ever see again!
Freaking out, she sent numerous emails to customer support, but they still came back and said “no way” to unfreezing her account because they truly thought she may be in violation of the terms of use.
It was 100%Â my fault, and I knew this was upsetting to her, so I decided to step forward and write a letter on her behalf, saying this:
[I really did include a candid selfie of us]
To my surprise, it worked – my friend received this back:
Due to this evidence, we have repealed your suspension and unfrozen your account. Please keep in mind that the state of your account can be revised if your transaction history raises flags on our system in the future.
Also, Angelina sounds like a good friend to have. :)
Let me know if you need anything else.
Leslie K.
Account Specialist | Venmo
Bottom Line
I strongly believe in the human component in the customer service industry, and sometimes it’s worth pursuing something a few times before taking no as a final answer. After all, in the miles and points world we are really good at HUCA, right?
And besides the obvious lesson learned here being to be more mindful of what you write in the transaction description box, the more important lesson I learned was to always transfer my Venmo balance into my checking account immediately.
Have you ever had an issue using Venmo before? If so, share your experiences here.
Venmo is owned by PayPal so I can’t say I’m surprised.
They are known to freeze accounts at the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing, even when completely unwarranted.
rl T. (Venmo)
Sep 27, 11:48 AM CDT
Hi Henry,
Thanks for reaching out.
While we encourage the use of Venmo, we must ensure all users abide by our User Agreement. After reviewing your inquiries and account activity, we have found that your actions and activity have been in violation of this agreement, https://venmo.com/w/legal/us-user-agreement.
As a result, your account has been permanently deactivated and we regret to inform you that we can no longer offer you the Venmo service. We do not make these decisions lightly, and when we do, it is because we must ensure that Venmo continues to be a safe way to make payments.
Please be aware that any future contact or inquiries will not be answered and that this matter will be considered closed upon your receipt of this email.
Best,
GEEZ VENOMO DOES THIS ALLOT THEY DID THE SAME TO ME THEY ARE A JOKE AHA ABOUT TO LOSE IT ALL
Also, Angelina sounds like a good friend to have. :) –
They really put this in your reply?
Swear.
They frozen my account and my friends account for doing 5 payment with a different names like movie date, phone bills, late rent, food, other bills
My brother Sean Siccone had sent me $2600 for my cancer treatments I currently am going through & Venmo permanently disabled my account & took the $2600? Please someone help as I am needing to continue to pay for my cancer treatments.
@Ryan Peterson
Have your brother contact his bank and they will reverse the charge. But then you will no longer be able to use venmo.
hey, im experiencing the same issue, my roommates paid me grocery bills on venmo, and used funny description, and they frozen my account and took almost $700. did your issue get resolved?
i have the same issue i have $400 stuck in my account that i cant get out.
They told me I can get whatever I had left in the account. You should be able to log in and transfer to your bank.
My friend and I have a vacation planned…I paid for the rental and she paid me (1st time users) with venmo…once i transferred balance to account…my account was frozen for violating policy….what policy????
After submitting ID..my account was permanently deactivated….???
How do I get my money?
Can they keep my money?
Hi April, even though your account is frozen, you should be able to transfer your money out. Contact them asking to do so.
Angelina how are you able to transfer the money out if the account is still frozen? We have been dealing with them for 1 month now for a friend paying rent for the first time. They froze both of our accounts, reversed the payments, unfroze mine but still has his frozen and holding $1450. It has been so frustrating and I feel awful as I was the one who suggested using Venmo for ease now it’s been a huge headache. He has submitted all paperwork and verified his bank account balance 3 times now and they just keep giving him the run around and asks him for the same info over and over without any other answers… Arrg so frustrating.
My friend sent me money the owed me for a trip I booked to ocean city Maryland and they permanently banned my account for it and won’t tell me why … just generic emails that give me no reason why and I can’t talk to anyone on the phone that will give me any answers … has anyone ever got their account back that they said was permanently banned ? I’m glad I’m not the only one but this still sucks lol
I sold my dad’s jet ski for him and transferred the money directly to his account (he hadn’t had it set up yet) after they paid me. I called it “ski”. I then took his phone and transferred that money directly to his bank account. It was my second transaction. We both got the “account deactivated message” the next day. I took a picture of my driver’s license and sent it in to no avail. I intend to call them tomorrow to see what the issue is. Reading their terms is slightly confusing but I don’t like being banned and would at least like to know what I did wrong so I can clarify or fix it. This sucks.
I signed up on the 29th and they froze me on the 30th, even though I hadnt even used it yet? LOL
This is bullshit, Venmo froze my account n stole the money, they did it twice to me before that with PayPal.
We need to contact the district attorney and ny state attorney general.
They are not allowed to get away with this
After 9 months of a frozen account I received an email stating that my account was unfrozen so I logged in and I called customer service to update my phone number and not sooner of my identity being verified AGAIN and now my account is frozen yet again. I don’t have a ton of money in the account by the grace of God but this is absolutely insane. I have a business that I am trying run and a wife that is so ill that she can barely lift her head, so to add more stress to the matter by all means. I am out the money that I put my time, energy, and integrity into earning. Not to mention the bachelor’s degree that I busted my ass for in order to achieve my hopes and dreams, the thousands of dollars in student loans that I am struggling to pay off… And now I have no damn access to my money again. I’ve already lost a $1000 phone and the guy that basically stole the phone called and had the money refunded, just like that that. I never got a phone call, no email, no nothing, just an empty account (no thanks to a different platform that thief suggested) I never would have had to sell it if Venmo wasn’t so freeze happy. And lets not forget the referral bonuses I’ve never gotten for the 6-7 people that I referred and they too were dumb enough to become customers with these &*$%s. For what, the money to sit in one of Venmo’s interest-gaining accounts..? So that Venmo can profit from money that they are withholding from honest tax paying Americans? Oh hell no! Not today! If one is committing a crime to obtain said money, then of course I agree the account be frozen, money refunded to sender and the account frozen/permanently banned. None of which applies to me, so what the hell.
All that being said, heres some more fun facts. Enjoy! :)
7/21/14
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS OVERSIGHT
In the Matter of
VENMO,INC.
(Respondent )
FINAL ORDER
(Financial Code Section 2148)
Commissioner of Business Oversight ORDERED:
* Venmo Inc. shall discontinue all unsafe practices as follows:
*Call Report
deficiencies, implement control procedures in
the accounting area to ensure accurate and reliable financial reporting and compliance
with United States.
*, Respondent shall enhance the Office of Foreign
Asset Control (OFAC) monitoring system and implement fuzzy logic OFAC detection.
*review, update, and approve the
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance program. Respondent shall enhance and
standardize the Know Your Customer (KYC) policies and procedures and transaction
limit within the AML compliance program
*file with the
commissioner an audit report for the fiscal year
*submit company
prepared financial statements and an average daily transmission liability (ADTL) report
*commission a special outside audit of its Bank Secrecy Act (BSA),
Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), and USA
Patriot Act compliance program and deliver a copy of the audit and management’s
response to the Commissioner by December 19,2014.
*develop and implement a capital
plan to maintain tangible shareholders’ equity (TSE) of not less than $1 million or 10%
of total assets, whichever is higher, at all times.
*Violation of any provision of this Order will be deemed
to be conducting business in an unsafe manner and will subject VENMO to further
regulatory enforcement action.
If you haven’t made your Venmo transactions private yet, do it now. The app reveals a massive amount of private details about users’ lives by default, The project, created by Berlin-based coder and privacy researcher Hang Do Thi Duc, examined 207,984,218 public transactions posted on Venmo in 2017.
was able to paint detailed pictures of users’ lives based on information available to anybody. It makes transactions viewable on a public feed by default unless users change preferences to make them visible only to friends or only to the two parties involved in a transaction. The amount of money spent by users is not visible publicly, but the text, emojis, and time stamps visible on transactions say a lot, Do Thi Duc said. Venmo told MarketWatch users have control over how much they share on the app.
Venmo states in its privacy policy that it shares user data “for everyday business purposes, for marketing purposes, for joint marketing with other companies.” Venmo also shares “information about your transactions and experiences” with its affiliates. Venmo’s public-by-default feature was the target of an investigation of the Federal Trade Commission, which accused Venmo in 2017 of “misleading” users about the fact that they needed to change two separate privacy settings to make their transactions completely private. The company reached a settlement with the FTC. A company spokesman previously told MarketWatch that users now have three options for controlling who can see their payments.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-scary-reasons-you-should-make-your-venmo-account-private-2018-07-17
According to Eric Turner, financial technology research analyst at S&P Global. When PayPal, owner of Venmo, announced its quarterly earning at the end of January, it said that ending in December the company has about $18.2 billion in “funds receivable and customer accounts.” “Venmo may make some money off of what you have but largely the sending back and forth has been for you and me,” said Moeser. [I call bullshit because how many of us have X-amount of money have frozen, myself included…hmm? Money that can’t be accessed and Venmo can’t do anything to resolve the issue…?] But yet they are sending it back and forth to customers….hmmm then why are so many of us sitting around nagging and trolling about money that Venmo locked up….!?
In the last three months of 2017, Venmo processed $10.4 billion in payments. Altogether about $35 billion in payments were processed by the app in 2017.
So while Venmo needs your money to succeed, it does not need it to invest it. It needs you to keep spending, preferably at its partner businesses.
https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/20/your-money/ive-always-wondered/what-are-apps-venmo-doing-your-money
The default privacy settings are making us at risk for targeted phishing attacks
https://www.whec.com/news/venmo/5002146/
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2017 median pay for software developers was nearly $104,000 a year.
And because Venmo is so popular, John Graham (Venmo’s software developer) may have raked in even more cash than we will probally ever know. Folks, thats ONE “man” that partook in the developement of this so called “company.”
http://time.com/money/5300120/bachelorette-venmo-john-graham/
People that run companies in such a negative manner are toxic to society, they can take what they want, when they want, change this policy and that policy whenever, however, freeze accounts/unfreeze accounts and hold our share for their own selfish greed/agenda(s).
So I suppose while we are being ripped off, trying to make an honest living, trying to pursue dreams and things we once hoped to have, we instead have to lose out on it all. Dreams, our homes, cars, and anything else that we were trying to achieve. All the while missing out on the time with those we love…working around the clock to provide, to make up for the lost dollar of yesterday. But forget the little guy that got the big guy on top to begin with, we met an agenda and benefited everyone but ourselves and families.
I tried to send money to my daughter and the app wasn’t working. Later found out, via email, that my account was frozen due to suspected violation of their user agreement. The only person I have ever sent or received money from is my own child. Venmo asked for a copy of my license, so they could “unfreeze” me. I gladly obliged and the two days later I have been permanently banned. I have no idea what I did or what happened. I can’t get thru to anyone and it’s frustrating cause my daughter uses it. I feel like I should have a the very least been informed of what supposed agreement I violated. Horrible customer service but I feel oddly better knowing I’m not the only one it’s happening to.
You guys really need to just start using Cash App. None of this headache nonsense on there and they don’t steal your money. Venmo is a complete joke.
I have cash app and have only used it a few times but they do charge you every time you use an ATM because I can’t find any ATM that allows me to take money out without getting charged by the bank and buy cash app. So you lose about five dollars every time you withdraw money but I guess it’s better than them holding on your money for months. I just got a notice that a few of my transactions were flagged. Recent ones so maybe paid for babysitting and for selling a couple of pairs of shoes. If somebody calls in and complains because they want a refund that’s when they start looking at your account. I had a guy contact them and he’s pissed because I won’t give him a refund on something he’s already in the process of getting. It just never made it out of the country that it was coming from so he got angry and because he’s foreign he couldn’t understand what I was trying to explain to him, so they froze my account.
they need to use Venmo & Cash App strictly with people they know (who don’t leave inappropriate descriptions) to avoid headache.
these apps main function is to process payments quickly & easily between people you know… they’re not a banking alternative; therefore, people are not granted much protection when they send money to folks they don’t know, get scammed by sending money to randoms they don’t know, etc.
these apps aren’t even FDIC insured, so big risk if they’re being used as a banking alternative…
Similar issue just happened to a friend of mine trying to pay me for rent. They paid the wrong person by mistake and now have frozen her account which leaves me left without the funds. If this isn’t resolved quickly we may be looking for a new place to live. So frustrating – and their support people are evasive and refer you to email only. Absolutely unacceptable customer service.
Hello Angelina,
I recently had gone into the hospital to take care of some medical issues. When I was released, I found that my venmo account had been frozen and all of my funds that I had at my disposal were being held. I spent countless hours chatting with a vast army of representatives before finally hearing from an account specialist via email. They stated that I had broken one of their policies and that my funds could be held for up to 180 days for “loss prevention purposes”. I stated that the only loss was my money. No matter what I did, they still have not told me exactly why my account had been frozen. I even told them I was contacting my lawyer and of course, being a merchant service, they can basically say whatever they want. I still have access to my account although my funds are still frozen until, what I could only assume correct, I’ve hit that 180 day mark. I’ve had similar problem with PayPal in the past and this is very similar. I used to recommend Venmo to everyone however never again will those words leave my lips. As it turns out, this is a frighteningly common and increasing practice by Venmo this year. Hopefully someone out there learns from my mistake and avoids the company for their transferring services. Thank you.
Best Regards,
Jeff D.
I have 1900$ and some change lock in my venom account and for trying to transfer out to my bank my account was frozen and after complying with thier requests for my back account statements my account was no link nger available to me with my money taken by them
This is total bullshit we all should stand together and file a law suite against these thives
Teddy baldwin
Will I still receive my direct deposit on my venmo card if it’s frozen?