Get Your Venmo Balance Back
Double check that your Venmo balance is not in the red – otherwise your account may end up in collections.
That’s according to a report by The Wall Street Journal , which found that a payment app owned by PayPal was sending users emails with negative balances ranging from $ 7 to $ 3,000 to inform them that “don’t pay, you risk getting online.” collection agency “.
Your account can be negative if, for example, you don’t have enough money to cover a transaction and your connected bank account doesn’t have it either. “If you do not have a Venmo balance or it does not cover a Venmo payment, you must confirm that you have sufficient funds in your bank account to cover the payment before making a payment if it is funded from your bank account,” the user agreement says.
But the magazine notes that some people said they were alerted to Venmo after they “previously reported that the negative balance in question arose after scammers hijacked their accounts or tricked users into sending payments to scammers.”
For example, Jordan Cole, a photographer, sent someone $ 281 for tickets to a Justin Timberlake concert, according to the magazine , but the scammer fell silent after the money was sent. Cole then informed his Wells Fargo bank of the incident, and Wells Fargo said it would stop paying. Dealing with Venmo, however, proved to be more difficult, Cole told the Journal :
They also tried to call Venmo, but the customer service line was closed all day. Therefore, they disconnected the Wells Fargo account from Venmo and called the Venmo hotline the next day, asking the representative to cancel the transaction before it was completed.
However, as Mr. Cole said, Venmo sent money to the person who cheated him. “Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered,” the company said in an email. Venmo also told Coles that they owe Venmo $ 281. When they didn’t pay Venmo about a month after the transfer, the company said it was in danger of falling into a collection agency.
A later email from a Venmo spokesman said that the person who paid for the tickets was not Venmo’s authorized seller and that the company was unable to obtain funds from him.
Venmo eventually dropped the charges after Cole spoke to the Journal , and then he and his wife removed the app.
Of course, you shouldn’t use Venmo to buy from someone you don’t know, and its user agreement “states that the platform should not be used to accept payments (or send payments) from another user for an item or service. “, – added the press secretary, in particular, warned against buying tickets for concerts.
When I contacted Venmo about this story, a spokesperson said:
Venmo has been working on bringing policies in line with PayPal’s user agreement for some time now. These changes, which have been a PayPal policy for a while, are the result of our efforts to ensure policy consistency across platforms. Venmo reserves the right to collect materials in accordance with our user agreement, and we may take this path if we cannot otherwise reach an agreement with the user.
So, heed this warning and make sure your Venmo balance is in black. The last thing you need is a collection account because you were tricked into buying tickets for a JT concert.