3 months ago
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A payment can be an unexpectedly revealing thing. Whether it’s splitting a bill on a first date, donating to a political cause or paying your therapist for a weekly session, you probably don’t want what happens in your wallet made public.
With transactions moving online, payment app Venmo has dangerously blurred the line between social media and personal finance, leaving many people exposed without knowing it. The app’s privacy settings have caused issues for public figures and regular people before, including President Biden and most recently, J.D. Vance, who, according to a Wired report, left his friends list public.
If you’re using Venmo, which is owned by PayPal, and don’t want your transactions to be public, head to the settings screen and make these changes. All these settings can be accessed on the Android or iOS apps.
Make sure all your payments are private
Any time you pay for a babysitter or reimburse a friend on Venmo, that amount and description could be public and shown to your other friends on the app. Here’s how to make it private by default.
- In the smartphone app, click on the profile icon, then the settings icon (looks like a gear). Select Privacy and set the Default Privacy Settings to “Private” (not Public or Friends).
If you’re still concerned about privacy
Hide past transactions
That first setting only changed what people can see going forward, so you’ll have to take another step to hide past payments.
- In the same screen, scroll down to More and tap Past Transactions. Tap on “Change All to Private” and the confirm your choice.
Hide your friends list
This may be one of the app’s sneakiest options. Hide all your contacts ASAP.
- Go back to the main Privacy screen, select Friends List under More and set to “Private.” Then toggle off the switch at the bottom for “Appear in other users’ friends lists.”
Don’t share location information
There are also some things you can do to limit what additional data of yours Venmo can share or make public — starting with your location, which is not required to make a payment.
- Go back to the main Privacy screen, select Location under More. This will reroute you to your smartphone settings where you can make sure location access is turned off or set to never.
Don’t share your personal contacts with Venmo
You can also limit which of your contacts are imported into the app. (It’s still easy to find people by their name or using the built-in codes.)
- Go back to the main Settings screen, select Friends & Social under Preferences. Make sure any toggles here are off (a gray dot instead of anything green).
Hide yourself
If you’d rather not be found at all, you can try changing your display name and photo that show up in the app so you are harder to find.
- Go to Account and tap Profile. Change your display name and profile photo to something that’s not obvious.
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