There’s A New Scam That’s Stealing Money From Venmo Users

To be fair, I totally know what Venmo is, and what it's used for, but I don't have an account myself. I've always been a PayPal kinda guy for all my online money stuff. But Venmo is used by a lot of folks.

It's kind of the millennial way to move cash around. I owe you $10? I'll just Venmo that to you. It transfers in seconds to minutes, much like PayPal. But there's a scam going around right now, that's becoming more common all the time.

In a nutshell, you get a text that looks like it's from Venmo, warning you that a charge is about to made to your account. Then it prompts you to log into your account through that text. And that's where the scam begins.

When you "log in", it asks you to verify your identity by entering your name and bank info. Except, as some law enforcement agencies have learned, you could use literally any username and password, and it'll get you to through the login. When you verify your bank info, they've got you.

Venmo has stated they would never reach out to a person in this way to do any kind of business. Especially something that would require sensitive bank information to prove your identity. That's what security questions are for, right? According to WGME - TV13, this is Venmo's official statement:

The security of our customer’s account information is always a top priority. When we become aware of phishing scams, we proactively work with law enforcement agencies, industry partners and use our own systems to detect fraud and mitigate the issue. We encourage customers to always be vigilant of who the text, social media messaging or email is from to protect themselves when clicking links or opening attachments.

As usual, there's a sucker born every minute, and sadly people have likely lost some large amounts of cash. But, just use common sense. If anything like this ever asks for personal info, do a little homework before you give them any information. The best advice anyone could get in this case, is just to keep your eyes on the money.