Money Back on Venmo: How The Scam Works

Venmo users have to be watchful for a new type of fraud that's been going around this week: the Money Sent by Accident Scam. The users receive a message from cyber criminals asking them to return a sum of money that was mistakenly sent to them. Let's take a look at how the scheme works and what you can do about it in order to stay clear of Venmo scams.

The scam starts with a message from an unknown user who claims to have made a mistake and sent you money by accident. They would try to prey on your nice reasoning and ask you to send this amount back to them. It's also possible that you may think the best course of action is to comply, but don't fall for it.

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Official authorities have revealed that this is a trick employed by scammers to defraud users of digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Venmo, or Zelle. Here is how it works.

These scammers make use of a stolen credit card to send money to random accounts. When you send the money back, they delete the stolen card and replace it with their own. Eventually, the illegal money sent to you will be removed, leaving you to bear a debt you don't know anything about. This would be a quite painful experience for anyone who falls victim to such tactics. Avoid sending the money back. Such a transfer will not get reimbursed. It's best that you only send money to people you know when using a digital wallet.

To get more protection for your digital wallet, you must link it up to a credit card. This is different from linking it to a debit card, which doesn't offer you as much security. A credit card will also enable you to extra security measures.

 

How to Avoid the Venmo Scam

To protect yourself from the send money by accident scam, do the following:

 

• Do not respond to strangers that make such a request. It's now a scheme employed by many scammers, and you should ignore such claims.
• Do not send the money back as you may not be able to recover such a financial loss. Also, make sure that you don't send money to strangers from your digital wallet.
• Link a credit card to your digital wallet because of its extra security features. Linking to a debit card does not have as many security features.

 

To protect your accounts from hackers, ensure that you don't use the same credentials/passwords for multiple accounts.

Watch the video below to see more Venmo scams:

 

 

 

Money Back Venmo Scam: How To Report

Warn your family and friends about the Money Back on Venmo Scam by sharing it on social media using the buttons provided. You can also officially report the scammers to the Federal Trade Commission using the link below:

Report To The FTC Here

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