Direct payments between Venmo and PayPal will finally become possible from November, some 11 years after it was first expected.
While some may find it convenient, it also opens a new route to scammers, so there’s a privacy setting you may wish to change when it goes live …
PayPal acquired Venmo in 2014, and it was expected that direct payment integration between the two platforms would quickly follow. That didn’t happen, but the company says it will finally go live next month.
Venmo doesn’t have the best of track records when it comes to privacy. By default, it made all transactions public, allowing anyone to look at the dates of each payment along with the content of the accompanying message. The company defended this as “a social feature.”
CNET warns that the upcoming integration could make life easier for spammers and scammers alike.
There is a critical visibility setting that all users should know about. It looks like PayPal users can find any Venmo user if they have the correct phone number, which could make specific scams easier or lead to spam.
There’s nothing you can do about this right now, but once the integration is switched on, there’s a privacy setting you’ll likely want to change.
[You’ll be able to” adjust this option by heading into your Venmo app, choosing Settings (the gear icon), then Privacy, then navigating to your Find Meoptions, where you can restrict who can find you on PayPal. Just don’t do it quite yet: Expect a Venmo update in November to make this option available.
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