Time to pay, Paypal pal Venmo! Oh no, haha, put away that wallet – just promise to be nice

PayPal has avoided that terribly tedious act of coughing up a fine, and instead has agreed to play nice with people's privacy – thus settling a complaint against its payment app Venmo by America's trade watchdog, the FTC. The peace treaty, signed this week, will see PayPal avoid any monetary penalties, but will bring the …

[Pascal Monett]

"Venmo did not live up to the promises it made to users about the availability of their money"

Yeah, well, it's the Internet. It's not like it's supposed to be honest and 100% reliable, right ?

[joed]

Re: "Venmo did not live up to the promises it made to users about the availability of their money"

Real PayPal story regarding funds availability. Purchased some software, 9.99$ total - dirt cheap, paid with PP - just in case and because what could go wrong (it's usually the seller who's on the hook, right). Well, to my surprise I had to contact PP's collection department to take care of negative balance on my account as their system would not even process my CC that had been on the account before I was forced to link bank account (transfer was just a fraction of linked account, the bank had no record of denied transfer). More hassle and wasted time that it's really worth. My only explanation is that PP discloses details of transactions to all parties (instead of just acting as a proper proxy) and the bank flagged the transfer as going to fraud rife region (Russian vendor, software absolutely legit though and not linked to any IP circumvention etc). Anyway, neither my bank nor PP explanations make much sense (PP customer support being definitely lacking knowledge of their product beyond script, past experience was better). This put the whole idea of using PP in question. I use it mostly for fraud protection but since the concept of cash like transactions failed since the forced switch to linked bank accounts - banks do not see it the "cash in the pocket way" and will charge you in case of insufficient funds instead of just rejecting transactions and keeping one safe from scammers etc trying to clean up the account - I may as well just switch to using Internet purchases dedicated credit card or Apple Pay.

[DropBear]

Re: "Venmo did not live up to the promises it made to users about the availability of their money"

The problem with that is that there are approximately infinity number of sellers and outlets who take Paypal and nothing else, exclusively, or else if they do take something else it's a major, major, major pain in the ass like inter-bank / wire transfer or similar, which tends to take your autobiography in triplicate, signed, countersigned, notarized, blessed by the Three Cave Hermits and the Delphi Oracle (to provide you with the three dozen magic numbers longer than a PGP signature - each), filed at your local bank office in person, costing no less than $50 for a $9.99 transfer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dropped by eBay, how has PayPal not imploded by now?

"This case sends a strong message" - WTF??? ... It doesn't do anything of the sort. The FTC just let them off as per usual with special favoritism for US corporations vs Consumers. This is the very same sht Paypal has been pulling for years... Even after eBay dumped them, they're still rolling!

~~~

"The FTC lodged a formal gripe against Venmo last year after a months-long probe found it had misled punters. Specifically, the commission charged, up until 2014, Venmo fudged how its privacy settings worked, including not warning users that their payments would show up on their social media profiles.

The FTC also claimed Venmo didn't warn people before freezing accounts or reversing transactions, resulting in payments being cancelled or rejected for insufficient funds.

Consumers suffered real harm when Venmo did not live up to the promises it made to users about the availability of their money,” FTC said.

The payment service also misled consumers about how to keep their transaction information private. This case sends a strong message that financial institutions like Venmo need to focus on privacy and security from day one."

---------

[Anonymous Coward]

The FTC...

...fails the populace constantly.

Let's be clear that the FTC, FCC and SEC have failed U.S. consumers more times than you can count. IMNHO they are all unscrupulous government agencies that seek headlines to justify their existence while fleecing tax payers. The evidence is irrefutable.

It's incomprehensible that the misuse of personal data by Venmo, Google, Microsoft, Experian and thousands more companies along with next to zero data security does not result in multi-million dollar fines for all. Instead the FTC, FCC and SEC are essentially in bed with the crims. You can throw in the cable companies and Telcos for chronic violations of U.S. law. Comcast is a perfect example with a secret, illegal automated blockage scheme of legitimate international e-mail sent to U.S. Comcast subscribers. Major law firms need to start filing class action suits against these criminal companies to hold them accountable for their crimes against humanity.

[adam payne]

"This brings to an end the investigation that included a focus on Venmo platform issues and practices prior to acquisition by PayPal. Since then, as a core part of PayPal’s and Venmo’s business and operations, we’ve taken steps to significantly strengthen our privacy and data security practices."

That's right PayPal blame other people, take no responsibility at all.

[jonfr]

Lack of ethics in U.S companies

I am not sure why this is. But there appears to be serious lack of ethics in U.S companies. This is not all of them but this is a major issue in my view.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Lack of ethics in U.S companies

You'd be naïve to conclude that the unscrupulous Biz practices are just U.S. companies. It's a world wide issue. Look at the Euro bank fraud convictions as an example of financial greed driving the world. Asia is notorious for unethical Biz practices. Many EU companies look the other way while Russia shoots down civilian airliners killed 200 people. There are plenty of dirtbag companies in the world.

[bugalugs]

Fucking Paypal

Fucking Paypal. Sold an item on eBay, specifying Paypal as payment vector. Item sold and buyer paid immediately. I get advised that their payment has gone to a " Pending " account and I have to wait at least 21 days for my money. I had to borrow money to despatch the item. I'm still going to have to wait 2 weeks from sale time. Fucking Paypal. I'll never specify it again.