Are you getting the Venmo ‘Suspicious Activity’ text?
Are you wondering why you received Venmo text message saying suspicious activity?
Well, if you are confused and need some details about it, you are at the very right place.
Here, we will be mentioning everything you need to know about Venmo ‘Suspicious Activity’ text.
What is Venmo Suspicious Activity Text scam?
Venmo is one of the most used peer-to-peer payment apps that serve the users of the USA. The app is trusted by millions of users for sending money to family and friends.
Venmo offers some more services like debit card services, where users can own a Visa powered debit card to pay shops and offline stores. Just like any other debit card.
Well, the popularity of Venmo has also let a lot of scammers grow on the platform. And some people have found multiple ways to earn money by making fool of other users.
Here, we will be talking about one of these scams. A lot of Venmo users report that they receive a Venmo ‘Suspicious Activity Text.’ The message is followed by a link and an instruction where users are told to follow the link and enter details.
A lot of users have already fallen for this trap, but some users found it to be a potential scam.
ALSO READ: Can I Venmo myself? How to Venmo yourself?
So, let us tell you the whole story.
A Venmo user receives a text message on their phone. The message is written in a way to make it look like it has been sent officially by Venmo anti-fraud services.
The message generally says that the fraud detection team has found a ‘suspicious activity’ on your Venmo account. And finally, the scam presents its trump card. You will be asked to secure your account by visiting a link.
And the link redirects you to another website. Where, again, to make you believe that it is the official website, there will be some arrangements.
How to identify if it is a fake website? We will talk about this in the 2nd part of this article.
And finally, you will be asked to enter the details of your Venmo account. And that’s what someone needs to access your account – email address or phone number and account password.
If someone provided the scammers with the details required to access the Venmo account, it wouldn’t take them long to cash out your account.
If you are not aware of the scam, there are high chances of losing money in just a matter of minutes.
And that’s pretty much it.
The scam might sound avoidable, but believe us when we say you won’t be able even to recognize if you are being fooled.
But, do not worry, we have got your back; we will be mentioning a quick guide on how you can avoid a Venmo scam and save yourself from any kind of inconvenience.
Check out how to avoid Venmo ‘suspicious activity text’ scam below.
MUST READ: How to increase Venmo weekly limit
How to avoid Venmo Suspicious Activity Text scam
Follow the methods below, and you will be able to identify a potential scam and avoid it.
We will be mentioning all possible methods here. Check all of them.
#1 Identify Fake Websites
The website links in the Venmo ‘Suspicious Activity Text’ scam redirects users to a third party website. These are generally third-level domains that are not owned by Venmo. The purpose of the domains like these is to get your Venmo credentials and misuse them.
There is a way you can identify these kinds of fake websites and report them to Venmo or share it with other Venmo users or in a community.
According to a Redditor, the links of scam websites like these are in a specific format – {xxxx}.{yyyyy}.{zzzzz}. Here, {yyyyy} is the domain name or website name and {xxxx} is the sub-domain.
And that’s where the scammers trick most of the people. For instance, {Signup}.{Venmo}.{com} is sub-domain (secondary part) of the website – Venmo.com, whereas, {Venmo}.{Signup}.{com} is a sub-domain of a website called Signup.com, which is definitely not Venmo’s website.
And sometimes, you might find websites in different combinations like {venmo}.{signup}.{org} or {venmo}.{login}.{com} or even {venmo}.{login}.{org}.
These websites are signup.org and login.com, and none of them belongs to Venmo.
#2 Ignore Instructions through Texts
All Venmo users must remember that Venmo will never send you any information via phone SMS. You will get most of the important details only through in-app notifications. You can trust in-app notifications, and there is no way scammers can play their tricks.
So, ignore any kind of text you receive on your mobile device. Venmo or even your bank would never contact you through SMS to tell you about the suspicious activities.
#3 Never Share Account Details
No matter what happens, whatever be the situation is, never ever share your Venmo account details with anyone out there. No, not even to your friends.
It’s good to trust your friend, but it is a matter of one’s privacy. So, never share Venmo account credentials with anyone.
ALSO SEE: [Fix] Why is Venmo not verifying bank account
#4 Never fall for Money Earning Schemes
Venmo ‘Suspicious Activity Text’ scam is one of many scams running on the platform right now. And scammers are not going to stop anytime sooner; they would come up with new ways to make fool of the users.
And one of the most successful ways for the scammer to make money out of fooling people is by lurking them into money-earning scheme.
Never fall for any money earning scheme which guarantees a lot of money in a small span of time.
Scammers might ask you to deposit money in their account, and you will be promised double the amount returned to your bank account. You might get some money back, but this is done just to gain your trust.
Once you deposit a significant amount, you will be blocked from contacting them. And let’s not talk about getting the money back.
You can also be asked to enter your account login details on a fake Venmo login page. And you already know what does that mean.
Always remember, 99% of these schemes are scams, and the rest 1% doesn’t exist at all.
#5 Contact Venmo and Bank
If you were not aware of any of the ongoing scams out there and lost your money to a trickster, the only way out of this situation is by contacting Venmo.
Frankly speaking, if you lose your money to a scam, you are not going to get the amount back. But, if the amount is a significant one, you should do whatever it takes to get it back.
You can try contacting Venmo. Let them know about each and every detail of the situation. And we are pretty sure you will get all the answers.
And Venmo couldn’t help you out; you can try contacting your bank once. They might be able to get your money back.
Whatever be the case, do not get carried away. Spread this info and let your friends and family know about the scams.
And that’s it, folks.
These are all the ways by which you can avoid Venmo ‘Suspicious Activity Text’ scam.
MORE DETAILS: How long does it take Venmo to take money out of your bank account
Final Words
We are concluding this post now.
Here, we first talked about the Venmo ‘Suspicious Activity Text’ scam.
And in the second part of this post, we included a quick guide on how to avoid Venmo ‘Suspicious Activity Text’ scams.
I hope, you will find this guidepost helpful.
If you have any queries, you can let us know in the comments section below.
Further Reading:
Is Venmo safe to use with Strangers, Sellers, Buyers
Can’t add Bank account to Venmo (Reasons & Solutions)
Does Greenlight work with Venmo
Does Venmo add friends automatically? How to hide them?
How to increase Venmo weekly limit
Ankit Kumar is an Engineer by profession and a blogger by passion. Over the last several years, he has written tons of articles, solving queries on Quora. He also has years of experience in investing in Cryptocurrencies, Funds, and Stocks.