It’s Time to Make Your Venmo Private
Payment apps are a great source of open-source information
Wallets like PayPal, Cash App, Zelle, and Venmo are easy to register, use, and research. While these platforms offer convenience, they can also be used for illicit activities, making them a prime focus for investigators who can find additional information or hidden assets with just a phone number or an email. Many people use their full names and real contact information because no one wants to lose their money by being sent to the wrong account.
A general recommendation for any phone app investigations is to add a person in question to the phone’s contact list. Many apps will prompt to sync contacts and will show if this person already has an account with them.
Venmo
Venmo is one of the most popular payment services with a huge privacy issue – everyone can see the user’s payment feed unless they make it private.
To find a person or a business on Venmo, investigators need a name or a username. After finding a person, it’s possible to see their feed with the names of senders and receivers, keywords, and emojis. Friend lists are available to check and it’s a great way to uncover associates and see their transaction history. Searching for a business makes it possible to find a phone number, email, address, or messaging app. I just searched the word “weed” on Venmo and found many sellers with their contact information available.
PayPal
PayPal has a built-in search for other PayPal account owners. When you send or request money the search will allow to find users via names, usernames, emails, or phone numbers. The account info usually contains a name, username, and photo.
There is also a way to find additional information without having a PayPal account. If an email of the person in question is known, it can be put into the “Forget Password” window, and it will show a partial phone number with an area code and five digits that can be googled.
Cash App
Cash App has the highest privacy out of all payment apps, with known fake accounts allowed on the platform. It’s enough to pay someone just by knowing their username or a “cashtag”, which usually looks like a link https://cash.app/$username. As any username, it can be searched on other platforms. The other way to find people on Cash App is through a phone number.
Zelle
The service doesn’t have a lot of open-source information but allows a user to search by checking a name, email, or U.S. phone number.
Username Search
It's always a good practice to check if the same usernames were used on other social media through Google in quotes or special username checks like below: