Payment apps like Venmo and its owner, the San Jose-based PayPal, provide consumers with relatively low-friction methods to exchange funds. That convenience can come at a cost, as they also present potential target-rich environments for scammers adept at bypassing app security in novel ways. The latest grift? Sending victims money, seemingly by mistake.
In a report published Tuesday, Los Angeles Times Utility Journalism editor Jessica Roy detailed the “money by accident” scam. It’s been around for a while but endures because it cleverly slips past many people’s psychological defenses.
It works this way: A message appears in Venmo saying something like, “Whoops! Please send it back!” Checking your account, you see a few hundred dollars. Realizing it could be an honest mistake based on a typo in the recipient’s screen name, an honest person might reflexively send the money back. But, unfortunately, that’s where things go wrong.
If the “mistakenly” sent money came from a scammer, it came from someone using a stolen credit card to set up a Venmo account. The stolen card is used to send the funds to the mark. If the unsuspecting receiver turns around and sends it back, the scam account deletes the credit card and subs in a new card that funnels money into that person’s actual account. Then, when the stolen money is eventually removed from your own Venmo, you are down a few hundred bucks out of your pocket. Roy notes in her LAT article that this scam happens…
