Good afternoon everyone.  Venmo just updated their app and made privacy a key component of the app.  Doctor of Credit also shared this article from a researcher who analyzed 18 million Venmo users from last year to see who users were paying and what they were paying for.  The main conclusion from the researcher was that most users’ transaction details (except dollar amounts) were publicly available and that most users had no idea that they could make their transactions private.  You might think that sharing your Venmo transaction details publicly is no big deal, “I have nothing to hide.”  But what if you went to the same bar every Thursday evening and paid you friend for “Drinks at Bar123.”  If you had a stalker, they could easily figure out your habits and find you.  That might be an extreme example, but it is possible.

In today’s post, I will show you how to easily change your default payment settings to private.  You can also retroactively change your past payments to private.  As an example, when I sign into my Venmo app, I can click on the globe icon and it will show me all public payments in real time from around the world.  I do not know any of these people, but yet, I can see who they are paying and what they are paying for.  Let’s go through the Privacy on Venmo screens and learn about the different privacy setting levels.

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