Venmo and Zelle May Not Be Free for Much Longer

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-08-01/venmo-zelle-cashapp-may-not-be-free-for-much-longer

by cwwc • 2 years ago

15 19 2 years ago

bloomberg.com

nikolay• 2 years ago

Venmo is not really free though.

Spivak• 2 years ago

It is for all practical purposes for P2P transfers and free to the consumer for commercial transactions.

_fat_santa• 2 years ago

In December, a Chicago resident was robbed at gunpoint by assailants who demanded her phone and the password to her JPMorgan app

This scenario is insanely scary to me. I had a friend that was robbed under similar circumstances (someone saw him enter his passcode into his phone then stole it from him). He ended up loosing around $50k.

lovethevoid• 2 years ago

What makes that scenario much worse is linked in the original robbery article, where Chase started the investigation and then closed it as the transaction was deemed "authorized" thereby keeping them down ~$2k. Despite escalating with police reports and video footage of the assault, Chase still closed the case. It was only after they went to the local news org that Chase finally did something.

Ekaros• 2 years ago

It was authorized, the authorization was given out. There was always option to refuse. The right party to compensate is not the bank, but the perpetrators.

smelendez• 2 years ago

It's frustrating that you can't preset transfer limits on these apps. Like I'd be fine with a $500 transfer limit to accounts I haven't previously sent to, with a 24-hour period to authorize a new recipient to receive more.

LorenPechtel2• 2 years ago

Or put an automatic 24 hour hold on any new recipients. You can enter the transaction, the recipient gets the notification but with the qualification that it's pending.

That would pretty much put a stop to the robbery problem without being an issue for the legitimate user as it's only intended for friendly situations anyway.

twelve403• 2 years ago

Zelle at major banks already does that. I can't transfer more than $2k-$5k into my own account of many years at a different bank, and I'm pretty sure the limit was more like $500 initially. Honestly, I have no idea how to steal $50k from anyone's banking app. Maybe a wire? Haven't tried via app. Not to mentioned whoever you're wiring to has been KYC'd. But certainly not through Zelle at US top 5 banks.

JohnFen2• 2 years ago

I have no financial apps of any sort on my phone. I wonder if robbers would believe that. Maybe I need to create a fake one, just in case...

twelve403• 2 years ago

Unless you uninstalled a browser from your phone, too, there is always the banks website.

potatoball• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/ODg65

SirMaster• 2 years ago

Me and my family/friends still mainly use PayPal. It's been free to send money back and forth for as long as I can remember and still free and still works great.

Not really sure why we needed so many other new apps.

What does Venmo do that PayPal doesn't?

wildzzz• 2 years ago

Competitor of PayPal until 2013 when they bought them out. Now, it's basically the same thing but they offer a social media feature where you can publicly share the memo for the transaction. Everything else is the same though since it's just PayPal under the hood.

FireBeyond• 2 years ago

Popular payment services are as convenient for fraudsters as they are for you.

Internal presentations on Zelle at the banks called that out specifically as a feature of Zelle, moving the nexus of liability for fraud toward the customer and further from the bank.

twelve403• 2 years ago

customers of the three largest lenders lost a total of $370 million via Zelle

this must be absolutely terrible for the banks, because this isn't even lost revenue, it's lost total payments volume of other people, which could in theory absolutely destroy and eclipse any actual revenue. I bet $370m is already a good chunk of revenue they make off these transfers.

Venmo and Zelle May Not Be Free for Much Longer

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