I was still in the hazy just-past-newborn phase with my son when someone sent me $500. Between diaper changes and endless bounce sessions on the yoga ball, I got a push notification on my phone.
“Anna sent you $500.00 – Antique table – You now have $500.00 in your Venmo account.”
Free money! Like most new parents, I had plenty of ideas for how to budget an unexpected $500. (Venmo, a digital wallet app owned by Paypal, took a seller transaction fee of 1.9% plus another 10 cents, so my $500 was actually $490.40.) But I had neither possessed nor sold an antique table. I was running on minimal sleep, but my scam sense was tingling. Anna had sent me the money by accident – or had she? Wouldn’t you double-check someone’s phone number before sending them that much money?
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It might have been an honest mistake. I sure would hate to be out that much because I mistyped a digit. I looked into it, and found a Better Business Bureau warning about this “money sent by accident” scam from 2020.
I looked up Venmo’s FAQs on what to do. To my surprise, Venmo said I could “simply send the payment back to that user.” (Venmo has since updated its guidance: The page says to contact Venmo support if you receive money…
