Use Venmo or PayPal? Be Aware Of This Account Draining Scam

Over the weekend, I must have used these apps a dozen times to pay back my girlfriends for things we bought during our girls trip to Napa Valley.

When you're splitting up tabs, paying for the Air BnB and filling up the gas tank in the rental car, these cash apps are fantastic! You don't have to worry about who has change for the $20 you grabbed from the ATM or where your checkbook is.  Cash apps like Venmo, PayPal and Cash were invented to make our lives easier, but unfortunately there's plenty of less than honest people out there looking for ways to hack these apps and steal the money you have sitting in your accounts.

The most recent scam making it's rounds across the country preys on people who have big hearts. Part of the reason I love living in the Treasure Valley is because when you're in need of a favor from a complete stranger, it's not difficult to find someone willing to help out. Say you're at a big event like Boise Music Festival.  Someone taps you on the shoulder and asks you to borrow your cell phone because their's died. They got separated from their family and are trying to track them down. You have no problem lending it to them for something like that.  They tell you no one answered and ask if they can shoot them a text telling them where to meet up.  You give them the go ahead...but that's not actually what they're doing!

Instead, they're opening your Venmo or PayPal account and transferring it into their own account. People have reported losing thousands of dollars after being scammed in a similar situation.

That's why you should always double check that your security settings are enabled.  Using a Touch ID & PIN isn't automatically enabled on Venmo, so by turning it on you're making it harder for would be scammers to get into your account.