Common Venmo Scams To Avoid

Common Venmo scams include phishing scams, offers of fake prizes and cash rewards, fake payments and more. The more aware you are of common Venmo scams, the better you can avoid falling for them and losing money.

Continue reading to learn some of Venmo’s most common scams, what to do if you’re scammed on Venmo and how to stay safe when using Venmo. 

What Is Venmo and Is It Safe?

Venmo is a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payment app that allows users to send and receive payments to and from other Venmo users. Generally, using Venmo is safe. However, because Venmo and similar services like PayPal and Zelle handle financial transactions, they are common targets for online scams and cyber attacks. This makes it crucial for Venmo users to protect their accounts by using strong, unique passwords and enabling Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). It’s also just as important that users are aware of common Venmo scams, so they can avoid falling victim to them. 

Common Scams on Venmo

Here are five of the most common Venmo scams you should know about.

Phishing scams

Phishing is a type of social engineering in which a cybercriminal convinces a victim to provide them with sensitive information or send them money by pretending to be someone they’re not. For example, some cybercriminals may pretend to be a family member or a friend so you’re more inclined to provide them with your personal information or send money. 

Phishing scams on Venmo can occur on the actual Venmo application or outside of the app, including through email and text message. Here are some different scenarios of Venmo phishing scams.

• Venmo payment request on the app: In this scenario, a cybercriminal sends you a payment request pretending to be someone you know. The payment request description may say something along the lines of “Need this ASAP. I promise I’ll pay you back.” Because you believe the request is from someone you know, you may fall for the scam and send the money. But before sending any money, contact the person directly who sent you the request through another form of communication like a text message. Doing this will prevent you from falling for a possible scam. 
• A text message from Venmo: Phishing texts, also known as smishing or SMS phishing, is another common Venmo scam. Typically, you’ll receive a text message claiming to be from Venmo. The message may say something like “Someone has attempted to log in to your account. Click the link below to protect it.” Clicking the link will immediately infect your device with malware or take you to a spoofed website that looks legitimate. However, if you visit the spoofed website and log in, the cybercriminal can gain access to your account because you’re providing them with your login credentials. 
• An email from Venmo: Phishing emails work the same as SMS phishing, they just happen through email instead. You may receive an email claiming to be from Venmo saying that you need to take some sort of action on your account. Interacting with any part of the email, like clicking a link or an attachment, places your Venmo account at risk of being compromised and your device at risk of becoming infected with a virus.

Fake prizes and cash rewards

Another common Venmo scam that is considered phishing is receiving emails or text messages, appearing to be from Venmo or other senders, claiming that you’ve won money. The message will state that to claim the money you’ll need to click on the link provided and then log in to your Venmo account. Clicking this link will take you to a spoofed website that looks like the legitimate Venmo website, but entering your credentials will give the cybercriminal access to your actual Venmo account. 

If you receive any emails or text messages claiming that you’ve won a specific amount of money or a prize, without you ever entering a contest, it’s likely a scam and you should avoid interacting with any links or attachments they have sent you. 

Fake payments

Fake payments on Venmo occur when you’re attempting to sell an item, on Facebook Marketplace for example, and are using Venmo as the method of transaction. The buyer may claim that they have sent you the payment through Venmo and send you a screenshot of the Venmo payment confirmation that they “received” through email. But these emails are easy to fake, so it’s best to confirm that the money has been successfully deposited into your Venmo account before you ship an item you have sold, rather than believing a screenshot of the payment.

Compromised accounts

A compromised account is an account that has been accessed by a cybercriminal without the authorization of the person who owns the account. Account compromise can happen due to various types of cyber attacks, but the most common are when a person falls for phishing scams, uses weak passwords or reuses passwords across multiple accounts. When a Venmo account is compromised, the cybercriminal can use that person’s Venmo account to convince their contacts to send them money. 

If you receive a random payment request from someone you know on Venmo, it’s worth taking the extra step to contact them through a different method of communication to confirm they actually requested the payment. 

Romance scams

Romance scams are when cybercriminals pretend to be a potential love interest. Oftentimes, cybercriminals use someone else’s identity, which is also known as catfishing. Once the cybercriminal lures you in with the illusion of a relationship, they manipulate you so they can get you to send them money or provide them with your personal information. They may say that they want to meet you in person but don’t have the money for a plane ticket to come see you. 

Romance scammers will make up any story to get you to send them money, and once you do, they may constantly ask you for more money or they may stop contacting you completely. 

What To Do if You’ve Been Scammed on Venmo

If you’ve been scammed on Venmo you need to report the scam to Venmo, contact your bank and report and block the scammer on Venmo.

• Report the scam to Venmo: To report a scam to Venmo, contact their support team by filling out their online form. 
• Contact your bank: Venmo will not refund your money. To try to get your money back, you’ll need to contact your bank to dispute the charge. Let your bank know that you were a victim of a scam. You’ll most likely need to provide proof, so gather as much proof of the scam as you can by taking screenshots. 
• Report and block the scammer: To avoid being harassed or scammed again, be sure to report and block the scammer. You can do this by going to their Venmo profile and tapping the three dots on the upper right-hand corner and then tapping Report. You can follow these same steps to block the user, but instead of selecting Report, tap where it says Block.

How To Stay Safe When Using Venmo

To stay safe as a Venmo user, you should take the following steps. 

Secure your Venmo account

To avoid having your Venmo account compromised, make sure it’s secured with a strong, unique password. A strong password is at least 16 characters long and includes a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols. If you’re struggling to create a strong password use a password generator.

Enable MFA on your account

When you secure your Venmo account with a strong password, make sure to also enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). MFA adds an extra layer of security to your account by requiring that you provide one or more forms of additional authentication to your username and password. If you were to fall for a scam and unwittingly reveal your Venmo login credentials, MFA would prevent the cybercriminal from being able to successfully log in to your account, since they won’t be able to authenticate who they are. 

Keep your transactions private

When you first create a Venmo account, all of your transactions are set to public by default. This means anyone who searches your profile on Venmo can see who you’re sending money to or receiving money from, what it’s for, and how much money you’ve sent or received. Not only is this an invasion of privacy, but it also makes it easier for cybercriminals to launch targeted phishing attacks.

If you haven’t already, set your Venmo transactions to private. You can do this by taking the following steps. 

1. Log into your Venmo app
2. Tap your profile icon on the bottom right-hand corner
3. Tap the settings icon on the upper right-hand corner 
4. Tap where it says Privacy under Preferences 
5. Under Default Privacy Settings select Private

Only send payments to people you trust

Since Venmo will likely not refund your money if you fall for a scam, it’s crucial that you only send payments to people you know you can trust. Avoid using Venmo as a way to send and receive money when selling or buying items online such as when using Facebook Marketplace. Instead, use a P2P payment application such as PayPal that offers protection in case you do fall for a scam. 

Stay Vigilant in Spotting Venmo Scams

Falling for a scam on Venmo can result in a financial loss that you may not be able to recover from. To protect yourself from falling for Venmo scams, stay up to date on the latest scams happening on the app and strengthen the security of your account by using a password manager. 

Start a free 30-day trial of Keeper Password Manager to make strengthening your online accounts a simple and seamless experience.