> I'm 19 and most people I know use Venmo. I'm curious - around what age are your friends? My parents don't know what Venmo is, and I don't think many of their friends (most in the age range of 40-60) do either.
Made in 1987 here. I have Paypal as well but I prefer Google Wallet. Google Wallet is directly connected to my bank account. I don't trust Paypal to connect it to my bank account. Why would you trust Venmo with your bank account I would never know. Am I... am I too old and too conservative?
Venmo was bought by Braintree which was bought by PayPal so venmo is basically PayPal now anyway. Everyone I know also uses venmo (Bay Area tech employees in their twenties).
I prefer square cash, but this entire app ecosystem only exists because American banks don't allow free wires for some reason.
The only people I know who use google wallet are google employees.
As far as trust there's pretty limited risk, lots of protection/laws around bank access and easy to audit.
> I prefer square cash, but this entire app ecosystem only exists because American banks don't allow free wires for some reason.
Ah - I kept wondering what the main hook for these services was, appreciate efficiency and social effects are the USP, but wondered what the main reason was over and above just a direct transfer from your mobile banking app (how most people I know here in the UK do this).
Lots of banks here (US) offer a p2p transfer services of some sort, but often, it's not as simple to use. For example, through Ally bank, I can send money to someone using PopMoney--
* If I know their bank routing number and account number, I can just send them money directly without any involvement on their end.
* Most people will not just give out their account info, even though it's on every check they write.
* I can use email or mobile phone to send a payment, but then the person on the other end has to deal with entering the same info into popmoney to accept the transaction. At that point, they have to trust popmoney.
None of this would be a problem except that each bank uses a different system. Chase uses ChasePay. Ally and PNC use PopMoney. There are several others. This causes a lot of friction when sending money. "Oh, you use chase pay? Now I have to set up an account there, too."
Venmo (and others) let you abstract away the bank details. Everyone in your friend group signs up for 1 account (and it could be a competing service. I like Sqaure Cash) and is ready to send. They also offer better account lookup and the ability to send a payment request.
Most US banks I've dealt with (Wells Fargo, BoA, Simple) allow transfer for free to other members of the same bank, but wiring to another bank can be upwards of $30 (if you can do it at all).
They also often require using a clunky web UI without an ability to do it from a mobile app.
I have a separate bank account for Venmo that I keep capped at a few hundred dollars. Getting robbed a few hundred is much better than a few thousand, and for the convenience of Venmo (especially on a college campus) it's a fine risk for me.
Serious question: We all know PayPal has a penchant for freezing/seizing PayPal balances, but is there actually a single known case of them actually initiating an unwanted bank account transfer without the user initiating it (or someone otherwise losing money via Venmo)? Is this fear even rational?
I can understand not wanting to support the company as a matter of principle, but I'm not sure I buy the risk angle.
Born in late 70's here, and I've been using Google Wallet like this as well. I used PayPal for things like eBay back in the day before it became such a cluster, and I still occasionally use it when some ticketing system requires it.
But for the past several years I've just defaulted to Wallet ever since they added the ability to attach money to an email like you're attaching a file. I know it's just UI but that was sort of brilliant (if done in the typical fuss-less Google fashion so most don't even notice it).
So while I still lean toward buying rounds or taking turns paying for things with friends I see often, occasionally I'll be out someplace and unexpectedly need cash without a nearby ATM. If a friend has cash, I can just send them funds to pay back. Same goes the other way around.
Other times it's something like ordering tickets to an event and I just buy for myself and a few friends at the same time. Then if they end up going, they can forward me funds at their leisure and no messing with ATMs or writing checks.
Sounds like Venmo is used in a similar way but I've not started using it if only because I already have something I'm satisfied with and the handful of people who even want to use such a thing have it as well. I tend not to proselytize to other people who don't express an interest in doing things this way, but I've yet to run into anyone who is using Venmo.
Although maybe half a year ago I was single for the first time in years and saw a lot of people mostly-jokingly (I hope) on Tinder asking people to Venmo them $5 to get their attention. Seemed like either a cynical/ironic "why not?" sort of joke or the least ambitious prostitutes in history.
I can actually relate quite a bit to this. I waited somewhere between 1 and 2 years before setting up Venmo just because I didn't want to hook it up to my bank account. Only after seeing all of my friends using it did I finally set up a Venmo account.
If you don't trust Paypal, I can understand why you don't trust Venmo.
Made in 1987 here. I have Paypal as well but I prefer Google Wallet. Google Wallet is directly connected to my bank account. I don't trust Paypal to connect it to my bank account. Why would you trust Venmo with your bank account I would never know. Am I... am I too old and too conservative?