Venmo is a fund transfer service that can be used as a mobile app for peer-to-peer transactions. While the app is great for friends and relatives to make payment transfers or requests, one major drawback is its unavailability to people outside the United States. To sign into your venmo account, kindly visit here.

Venmo, which is a PayPal-operated fund transfer service, cannot be used by people not in the United States. What this means is that you and the other party must be in the United States before you can successfully use Venmo for fund transfer or receipt.

How Venmo Works

Venmo works as an app which lets people (most especially friends and relatives) transfer funds to or receive funds from one another. Although not suitable for transactions between strangers, Venmo is a user-friendly app.

Prettily, Venmo account holders can not only transfer/receive funds via the Venmo app but also, they can complete online purchases on a site whose payment button simulates that of PayPal.

Although Venmo has a website through which users can sign into the money transfer service, Venmo’s payments (fund transfers and requests) can be done only on the Venmo app.

How to Get Started with Venmo

Head to your phone’s app store and download the Venmo app. After the download, you should launch the app and create your login. In the process, you’ll be required to confirm such personal details as mobile number, bank account and email address.

The details just mentioned are the initial requirements for creating your login. Simply put, they are not enough for you to have a verified Venmo account.

To signup kindly visit here https://venmo.com/signup/. The First and most important thing is to look at venmo fees. Then hit “Next” to fill out your info, and you’ll be on your way to using Venmo.

How to Fund Your Venmo Account

Your Venmo account needs to be funded before you’re able to transfer funds on the Venmo mobile app. To fund your Venmo app account, you’ll have to link Venmo with your US bank account or any of three cards, credit card, debit card and prepaid debit card.

Also, you’ll have to link a bank account with Venmo if you wish to withdraw a received fund through Venmo. In linking your bank account with Venmo, it’s advisable that you link only a checking account. This is because there’s a restriction on savings accounts which limits you to only six online transfers/withdrawals monthly.

Transfer Limit

Your weekly transfer limit will be capped at $299.9 pending the time you submit more credentials for identity verification.

Your weekly transfer limit will be expanded to $4,999.99 provided that you have submitted such additional credentials as ZIP code, birthdate and Social Security Number. With the said additional credentials, you’re guaranteed a verified account which lets you send as much as $4,999.99 weekly.

Verifying your Venmo account is very important. This is because your weekly limit (for Venmo-to-bank account transfers) will be increased to $19,999 as against the $999.99 experienced with an unverified account per transaction.

Venmo’s Transaction Fees

Venmo doesn’t charge any transaction fees for payments that you make via a debit card, bank account and prepaid debit card. While the latter clarifies that you can use Venmo for free transactions, you won’t be able to escape charges if you’re using an instant transfer or paying through your credit card. For each payment transaction you carry out using your credit card, Venmo charges you 3% of the amount paid. In the case of instant transfer, which implies withdrawing fund into your debit card from your Venmo balance in less than an hour, Venmo charges you 1% of the withdrawn fund.

As implied earlier, Venmo charges you for a transfer made through your credit card. However, the transfer service doesn’t charge you any transaction fee for using your credit card to make purchases in cases where the merchants support paying through Venmo.

Also, Venmo doesn’t charge transaction fees for Venmo-to-bank account transfers done using the standard “cash-out” feature. But under this circumstance, the delivery period may extend for as long as three business days.

Debit Card

Venmo’s debit card is not generously available because only a limited amount of the Mastercard was released by Venmo. If you wish to use the Venmo Mastercard despite the limited availability, you should register your name on the Venmo app. You can do this by including your name in the in-app waitlist.

Venmo’s Customer Service

Venmo’s customer service can be accessed on phone, via email and through the chat feature within the Venmo app. If you’ll be contacting the support team on phone, you can do so on weekdays between 10am and 6pm (Eastern Time).

Venmo’s Security Features

Venmo maintains two basic in-app security features namely two-factor authentication and PIN-and-fingerprint-aided login. These security features are intended to safeguard customers’ accounts particularly in the case of phone loss or theft.

It is, therefore, important for Venmo users to have those security setups in place. However if you fail to activate the said security setups and eventually lose your phone, you’ll have to deactivate third-party access to your Venmo account. To do that, simply modify your permission settings on the website of Venmo.

Venmo’s Privacy Settings

Venmo lets you modify your privacy settings in such a way that you simply decide who can see your Venmo transactions. For such settings, there are two options namely friends (sender, recipients and Venmo connections can see the transactions) and private (only sender and recipient can see the transactions).

What Happens to Your App Account Balance If Venmo Crashes?

This is a question that should bother you especially if you’re aware of the fact that unlike bank account balance, Venmo account balance is not backed by any federal insurance. What this means is that a Venmo user could lose their app account balance if Venmo suddenly crashes or becomes insolvent.

It is, therefore, unsafe to keep your money in your Venmo account for too long. If you’re receiving money via Venmo, it’s advisable that you transfer the money to your bank account rather than leave it in your Venmo account. If you otherwise leave the money in your Venmo account, it will be kept in your in-app balance so that in the future, it could be useful for funding payments via Venmo. Doing so might seem good but what happens to your in-app balance if Venmo suddenly crashes?

Conclusion

Venmo is a legit fund transfer service and besides the fact that it is unavailable to people outside the United States, there isn’t any other serious downside about the service.