Venmo is an easy way to send money back and forth to friends, family, and the guy who runs the office fantasy football league. But what if you received a Venmo notification that says you’d received money from someone you don’t know and that you weren’t expecting? Chances are, it’s not an accident or a stroke of luck: It’s a scam.
The practice of sending money by “accident”—and then asking for it back in apologetic and somewhat frantic tones—is a scam that has been making the rounds not just on Venmo, but other similar pay-apps like Zelle, PayPal, or Apple Pay. It’s a scam that preys on people’s kindness and gullibility.
How does the scam of sending money by “accident” work?
According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), scammers buy stolen credit cards from the dark web and connect them to their payment app of choice. Then, they start sending random people money by “accident” and proceed to message them asking for the money back, saying it was sent by mistake. The scammers change out the stolen credit cards from the payment apps and connect their own personal cards instead, and wait for the victims to send them “clean” (non-stolen) money back.
If you are part of the group who sent money back, you didn’t actually send them the same, say, $500 from the stolen credit cards back to them. The money you’re sending is from your account. Eventually, the payment apps will catch on to the stolen credit card fraud…
