Venmo

Is Venmo safe?

Venmo is safe enough for what it was built for: splitting dinner, rent and holidays with people you know. It is a poor tool for paying strangers. Payments to personal accounts carry no Purchase Protection, so a fake ticket seller or landlord who gets paid is usually never refunded. And Venmo has a social feed: its user agreement still says payments by new accounts "may be set to public by default". We score it 48/100, lower than its parent company's PayPal app at 55.

Are Venmo payments public?

This is the oldest complaint about Venmo, and it is still partly true. When the FTC acted in 2018, every peer-to-peer payment appeared on Venmo's social news feed by default, with the names of both people and the note. The five most recent payments on a profile could be seen by anyone, even people without an account. The FTC also found that limiting the "default audience" for future payments did not on its own make them private, because a second setting also had to be changed.

Venmo has since removed the global public feed, but the current user agreement keeps public defaults possible for new accounts. Amounts are not shown, but notes like "rent", "therapy" or a pizza emoji, plus who you pay, reveal a lot about your life. Teen accounts are private by default.

New Hampshire pushed the issue again. In a settlement with PayPal announced on 22 December 2025, the state required Venmo to let people choose privacy as the default during sign-up and to notify existing users how to change their settings.

Apple's App Store label adds the usual tracking. Advertising data is listed as used to track you across other companies' apps, and precise location, user ID and device ID are linked to you for Venmo's own advertising, analytics and personalisation.

Venmo scams and why refunds are rare

Most Venmo money is lost to people, not to hackers. Common patterns are fake sellers of concert tickets, puppies and rentals, "accidental" payments followed by a request to send the money back (the original payment later bounces), and fake Venmo support accounts.

The rules are clear in the user agreement. Purchase Protection applies to payments to business profiles and payments marked as for goods and services. A personal payment to someone posing as a friend or private seller is not covered, so Venmo will usually not reverse it.

New Hampshire's investigation also alleged that PayPal advertised Purchase Protection with a "shield" icon while putting significant hurdles in the way of claims. Under the December 2025 settlement, PayPal agreed to remove the misleading wording and the shield icon from Venmo's Purchase Protection screens, link directly to the eligibility limits, and show risk-based scam warnings that say plainly users may not get their money back. PayPal paid $1.75 million.

What the FTC found in 2018

The FTC's complaint covered three problems. Venmo told users that money was available to move to their bank before it had finished reviewing the payment, then froze or reversed some of it, and some users could not pay rent as a result. It misled users about privacy controls. And it claimed "bank grade security" while, the FTC said, breaking the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act's Safeguards and Privacy Rules. The order, finalised on 24 May 2018 by a 5-0 vote, had no fine but bars Venmo from misrepresenting these things.

We found no large Venmo data breach since then. That and PayPal's ownership put security (58) in the middle of the range.

Is money held in Venmo protected?

Partly. Venmo's user agreement says that if you have an open Venmo debit card or have used direct deposit, your US dollar balance is placed at FDIC-insuredDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary Program Banks and may get pass-through insurance up to applicable limits. Other balances are an unsecured claim against PayPal, held in pooled accounts kept apart from PayPal's own funds. Crypto held in Venmo is not FDIC insured. FDIC insurance covers a Program Bank failing, not PayPal failing.

How to use Venmo more safely

1. In the Privacy section of your settings, set future payments to private and change past payments as well.
2. Only pay people you know in person. For anything you buy, pay a business profile or mark the payment as goods and services.
3. If someone sends you money "by mistake", do not send it back; tell them to cancel it through Venmo support.
4. Never trust support numbers from search results, social media or messages. Contact Venmo from the app.
5. Turn on a PIN or Face ID for the app, so a lost unlocked phone does not mean lost money.
6. Move larger balances to your bank unless you know your balance is covered by FDICDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary pass-through.

How we scored it

Scams and harmful content (45) and privacy (40) are Venmo's weakest factors, because of public-by-default payments and the lack of protection for personal payments. Security (58) is middling: no large breach found, but a 2018 FTC finding that it overstated its protections. The regulatory record (50) covers the 2018 FTC order and the 2025 New Hampshire settlement.