in length.
Running Head: Venmo Privacy Concerns Page 2
Jane went to a farmers market with her friend Aska. When Jane went to buy something she realized she didn’t have any cash and all the stands only accepted cash. Aska said she had cash and showed Jane a cool new app she had called Venmo where she could quickly and easily send money to her friends from her phone. Jane installed the app in a couple of steps and was able to reimburse Aska for the items she bought for her.
This is a typical example of a Venmo ad, it emphasizes the simplicity of setting up the app and the ease of using it on the go. Venmo describes itself as: “A free digital wallet that allows you to pay and request money from your friends.” (Venmo, 2009-2015) Venmo 's mission is to be the modern money transfer system and for millennials it has become just that. I have used this app myself for a couple of years now and have found it to be very convenient. It is easy to use and set up, as promised and has the additional benefit of being completely free. Since Venmo 's inception however, there have been security and privacy concerns from analysts and users alike. There has been rising concern about hacking, loss of funds, and poor customer support. One example of the type of security breach that people were concerned about, reported on Slate.com was that of Chris Grey, a 30-year-old Web developer. One day in February of this year Chris woke to find that a large sum had been withdrawn from his bank account. He tried to figure out what the pending amount was for and then realized that the $2,850 was being taken from his Venmo account. Chris went to his Venmo account and found his password had been changed. …show more content…
He went through the reset process, signed in and found that a new email address had been authenticated and his settings had been changed and this amount ($2,850) had been taken out by someone who hacked into his account the day before and had only left a note with the transaction saying: “for about time”. Chris knew something
Running Head: Venmo Privacy Concerns Page 3 had gone wrong. “I never got an email that my password had changed, that another email was added to my account, that another device was added to my account, or that a lot of my settings had changed,” he says. A colleague and I were able to duplicate this lack of notification with a quick test: Venmo doesn’t alert you if your password or email credentials change from within the account. “There are basic security holes that you could drive a truck through,” Chris said. (Griswold, 2015) Chis continued to have trouble as he attempted to figure out how to contact Venmo and attempt to get his money back. He found that there is a $50 liability if the fraud is not reported the first day and a $500 liability if it was not reported by the second day. He attempted to contact Venmo through twitter and by email and was unable to get a reply. Chris was finally able to get reimbursed through his bank which had a good fraud department, but he was never helped by Venmo. “These are big problems,” says Rob Shavell, co-founder and CEO of Abine, a data-privacy firm
Running Head: Venmo Privacy Concerns Page 2
Jane went to a farmers market with her friend Aska. When Jane went to buy something she realized she didn’t have any cash and all the stands only accepted cash. Aska said she had cash and showed Jane a cool new app she had called Venmo where she could quickly and easily send money to her friends from her phone. Jane installed the app in a couple of steps and was able to reimburse Aska for the items she bought for her.
This is a typical example of a Venmo ad, it emphasizes the simplicity of setting up the app and the ease of using it on the go. Venmo describes itself as: “A free digital wallet that allows you to pay and request money from your friends.” (Venmo, 2009-2015) Venmo 's mission is to be the modern money transfer system and for millennials it has become just that. I have used this app myself for a couple of years now and have found it to be very convenient. It is easy to use and set up, as promised and has the additional benefit of being completely free. Since Venmo 's inception however, there have been security and privacy concerns from analysts and users alike. There has been rising concern about hacking, loss of funds, and poor customer support. One example of the type of security breach that people were concerned about, reported on Slate.com was that of Chris Grey, a 30-year-old Web developer. One day in February of this year Chris woke to find that a large sum had been withdrawn from his bank account. He tried to figure out what the pending amount was for and then realized that the $2,850 was being taken from his Venmo account. Chris went to his Venmo account and found his password had been changed. …show more content…
He went through the reset process, signed in and found that a new email address had been authenticated and his settings had been changed and this amount ($2,850) had been taken out by someone who hacked into his account the day before and had only left a note with the transaction saying: “for about time”. Chris knew something
Running Head: Venmo Privacy Concerns Page 3 had gone wrong. “I never got an email that my password had changed, that another email was added to my account, that another device was added to my account, or that a lot of my settings had changed,” he says. A colleague and I were able to duplicate this lack of notification with a quick test: Venmo doesn’t alert you if your password or email credentials change from within the account. “There are basic security holes that you could drive a truck through,” Chris said. (Griswold, 2015) Chis continued to have trouble as he attempted to figure out how to contact Venmo and attempt to get his money back. He found that there is a $50 liability if the fraud is not reported the first day and a $500 liability if it was not reported by the second day. He attempted to contact Venmo through twitter and by email and was unable to get a reply. Chris was finally able to get reimbursed through his bank which had a good fraud department, but he was never helped by Venmo. “These are big problems,” says Rob Shavell, co-founder and CEO of Abine, a data-privacy firm