I'm thinking of getting Venmo. Can you tell me how it works and why it's safe?

I would ask why Venmo as opposed to Zelle. I have both – but Zelle hooks right into my bank and is accepted by anyone/everyone I need to send money to (landscapers, my kids, etc.)

Venmo isn’t quite as integrated with banks, and far fewer people use it. So it’s not as beneficial to me.

They are both safe – as long as you (a) protect your password on your phone or computer, and (b) if you are sending money, make sure you are sending to the right person.

I have heard (but have no experience) that if you send to the wrong phone # or email address, it is next to impossible to get your money back. That’s a negative for both.

You first need to link your bank account to Venmo. When you want to send money to someone, Venmo debits your bank account (close to real time) and then sends the recipient an email. If they already have a Venmo account, then they ‘accept’ the transfer which is credit to their account on Venmo. If they don’t have an account, they need to set one up. Then at some point they transfer the money from Venmo totheir own bank account.

It seems that most of my friends have Venmo but I still don’t really understand how it works. Van I send from Zelle to someone’s Venmo account?

Venmo is peer to peer (your Venmo to someone else’s Venmo) but not run by any bank. But your Venmo can be connected to your bank. Zelle seems to be bank-approved peer to peer (Zelle to Zelle). I don’t think the two systems can connect.

Venmo is owned and run by PayPal, so they aren’t super-independent

PayPal is not really a bank.

When I google it, I see there are scams that scammers use, and also that it’s not FDIC insured.

From what I understand, if you fall prey to a scammer, the money is gone and there’s no way for the bank or anyone to get it back for you. It’s for this reason that I don’t have Venmo or Zelle. It might be old fashioned for me not to have them, but then again, I don’t have to worry about losing money through them by way of being scammed. It’s one less thing to have to worry about, to check, etc. I know that a Jelly who is an engineer also feels the same way about these apps, and he doesn’t have them, either.