As if things weren’t embarrassing enough for national security adviser Michael Waltz, what with inviting a journalist into a private policy group chat and all, Wired discovered that his Venmo account was wide open, revealing the names of “hundreds of Waltz’s personal and professional associates.”
Venmo is a popular and convenient way to transfer money to friends and vendors, but it’s a good idea to keep it as closed down as possible, as it is with any online banking institution. To keep your Venmo account as secure as you can, here are some ways to avoid exposing your contacts, and your account, to public scrutiny — or worse.
Check and change your privacy settings
Keep in mind that if you’ve established any Venmo Groups (as the name suggests, groups of contacts), any transactions using that feature will be visible to everyone in the group.
You may also want to keep your past transactions hidden.
And do you really want everyone to be able to see all your listed contacts?
It’s also good to know that, when dealing with two accounts, Venmo will default to the more private setting. For example, according to Venmo, “if you send a payment and mark it Public, but the recipient has their default audience set to Private, that payment will still be private and only be visible to you and the recipient.”
