People Are Using Venmo To Spy On Cheating Spouses (marketwatch.com)

According to MarketWatch's Leslie Albrecht, people are using the peer-to-peer payment app Venmo to find out if their spouse is cheating. Some are even saying the app is more effective than Facebook at this sort of investigation. "What you're seeing on Instagram or Facebook is what they want you to see," said Abby Faber, a 19-year-old freshman at Indiana University. "They're edited pictures that they put up. But with Venmo, it's very normal casual interactions. It's what they were doing and spending money on." From the report: Some users seem to forget that their transactions are public by default, and their payment activity provides an unfiltered paper trail of what's really happening in their lives. In [Faber's] case, she checked up on her ex-boyfriend and saw he was spending money on pizza and the popular video game Fortnite -- and making regular payments to one girl, who Faber guessed is his new hook-up.

Venmo has had a social component since it launched in 2009. Users see a feed of both their own friends' payments and total strangers' activity every time they open the app, and it's easy to look up users. Exact amounts aren't listed, but you can see who's paying who and which words or emoji they use to describe the payment. The social feed is Venmo's "secret sauce," said Erin Mackey, a spokeswoman for Venmo and its parent company PayPal. In fact, it's usually the reason people are logging on. "Our most active users check Venmo daily and the average user checks Venmo two to three times per week -- and it's not for payments, but to see what their friends and family are doing." The report mentions a settlement Venmo reached with the FTC last year over its public-by-default social component. The FTC accused (PDF) Venmo of "misleading" users about the fact that they needed to change two separate privacy settings to make their transactions completely private. "Venmo reached a settlement with the FTC, and a company spokesperson noted that users now have three options for controlling who can see their payments," reports MarketWatch.

Comments

Uh, that's a hooker

[Notabadguy]

"In [Faber's] case, she checked up on her ex-boyfriend and saw he was spending money on pizza and the popular video game Fortnite -- and making regular payments to one girl, who Faber guessed is his new hook-up. "

That's a hooker.

Re: Uh, that's a hooker

[gnick]

If the most valuable thing about your SO is the sex, it might be time to reevaluate your relationship.

If your SO considers sex a chore, you might want to reevaluate a couple of things.

Re: Uh, that's a hooker

[Freischutz]

Could be worse, you could be shelling out for a cat.

Yeah, but at least the cat isn't pretending to give a shit, it's very open and honest about not giving a shit about you and that kind of honesty is something to value.

Why in the hell..

[thomn8r]

...would someone use a payment system that tells everyone else what they're spending money on? Is the Snowflake Generation so narcissistic that they can't keep anything private?

Re:Why in the hell..

[sqorbit]

That was exactly my thought. How self absorbed do you have to be to want to "socialize" your spending habits?

Re:Why in the hell..

[tlhIngan]

...would someone use a payment system that tells everyone else what they're spending money on? Is the Snowflake Generation so narcissistic that they can't keep anything private?

Exactly. It's the braggart payment system.

It's all about the brag - you brag about your vacation on social media, about the new phone you bought, your new clothes, etc.

Venmo sumply capitalizes on that - hey, how you can PROVE you bought those items and not merely borrowed them!. Look at me buying my new phone!

And yes, it's a thing - turns out a lot of people beg/borrow/steal items for their selfies. Like they may take a nice selfie in a fancy car, but it turns out it's owned by a family friend instead. There was one YouTube personality whose mom filmed her daughter using the mom's boss's fancy sports car saying how rich she was. As mom was a realtor, there was plenty of filming to be hand in client houses, too.

It was only news because the mom got fired after she got found out. She now managers her daughter. But you can bet Venmo will be used heavily to prove those items were bought and not borrowed.

peer to peer with emojis

[labnet]

It seems venmo is a peer to peer payment app that also lets you leave social media comments.
In fact the platform started as a text messaging service. Its seeing huge growth with Millennials to 'settle up' with each other. Think, your drinks tab, sharing a cab, selling a game.

I think us lower UIDs, who have a solid memory of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, remember that spying was the key to rounding up millions of 'non conformists' for imprisonment or extermination. Young people don't have this historic memory of how psychopaths in power can misuse this information.

Statistically the world is becoming more peaceful and perhaps us oldies are just paranoid: time will tell!