Venmo is a mobile social payment service operated by Venmo, LLC, a U.S. entity owned by payment giant PayPal. Venmo account holders can transfer money to others via a mobile app. However, both the sender and the recipient must live in the US.

In the first quarter of 2018, $12 billion worth of transactions were processed.
Venmo was launched in 2009 and aimed at friends who share bills, such as movies, dinner, rent, or tickets.

Recently, Venmo has attracted negative coverage. Users of the app have complained about massive problems with incomprehensible instructions on how to use the program, massive security issues, and ongoing server outages.

In 2019, a researcher downloaded and analyzed seven million transactions, concluding that Venmo puts its users at risk for various cyberattacks.

On Trustpilot, Venmo receives a “Poor” trust level with a 1.3-star rating. Given the many negative feedback and security issues, we included Venmo in our “Orange Compliance Light” list.