Venmo v. Paypal v. Zelle v. Here's Your Damn Cash!!

I'm going to be owing money on a regular basis to a close family member of mine, let's call him Joe Schmo.  He added a cell phone line to his account.  I asked him to let me know the exact amount that I owed him when he got his T-Mobile bill.  But, he never did.  I kept asking him for the amount, but he, for some reason, was not forthcoming with the amount.  Finally, I owed him about three months of T-Mobile service.   I told him I was just going to guess at an amount and pay him.  

He asked me to pay him what I owed him through Venmo.  I didn't have a Venmo account.  I only had a PayPal account (which I wasn't crazy about).  I don't like having to give my bank account information to an outside service.  I asked, "can I transfer the funds via Zelle to your Citibank account?"  The answer was a resounding "NO!  I don't use that account for receiving payments."  The next thing I asked was, "Well, I already have a PayPal account.  May I transfer the funds with that, since I already have cash sitting there for eons of time?"  I received another resounding "NO!  Don't give me more work to do.  I already have enough work and trying to simplify things for myself".  So, lastly, I asked him for his Venmo account link.  He says, "It's my cell phone number."

So, at this point, I see no other way.  So, I begin a Venmo account from my computer.  Once I do this, I am asked to add my friends to it.  What is this, Facebook????  I try to bring up Joe Schmo, and there seem to be two of them.  I, once again, ask Joe for his Venmo account link so that I can add the correct him.  Another resounding "NO."  Nothing more.  So, I think to myself, "Well, that's it.  I'm not going to waste any more of my time on this any longer, since Joe is not being very helpful in this transaction.  He's getting cash."  

The very day that I visited him, I took the cash in an envelope, with the breakdown of my expenses written on the face of the envelope, and slapped it on the keyboard of his lap top.  Coincidentally, it seems that that very day, earlier in the morning, Joe had finally sent me his Venmo account link.  I hadn't seen it.  In any event, it was too late.  I had already taken the cash out of the ATM machine.  

But, since this was going to be an on-going payment. I thought I might as well set up the Venmo account completely.  Especially now, since Joe had given me his Venmo link.

This was my experience setting up my Venmo account from my computer at home.  And, I sent Joe the following e-mail.

Subject: Friggin' Venmo

So, I sign into Venmo on my computer.  I then add you as a friend.  I click on you and that’s when I see all your payments and notify you of it.  They are all publicly viewable.  I add my bank card information (I'm not very happy about that, but they charge a percentage fee for every other kind of payment).  I then have to look around to see how to make a payment.  It is not clearly shown. 

I finally get to a place for that and there’s a message that if I want to make a payment through venmo.com they are discontinuing it and if I want to make a payment that way, I’ll need to get the app.  They give me a link.  Google Play (or Store?) or App Store.  I try App Store first.  But, they say my device is not compatible.  I then go to Google Play.  I find the app I want.  There’s a message on the screen saying that my device is compatible for that app.  Great!  I click “install.”  It immediately brings up my Samsung for it to be added to (that’s my cell phone, not my pc where I am doing this from).  I wanted the app on my pc. But that choice is not there.

Now I have to go into the kitchen and get my cell.  I have to look in every hidey hole on the cell for Venmo and finally find it.  I go to install it and it forces me to logon to Venmo from my cell.  Once I attempt that, I get the alert message that they are going to send me a verification code to make sure it is indeed me.  Sheesh‼‼  I go through that whole scenario and finally get the friggin app on my cell.  I WANTED IT ON MY PC‼‼  Then I find that you are not a friend on my cell Venmo (even though I added you successfully on my pc Venmo account).  So, I have to, once again, add you as a friend.  The system brought in all my contacts so that I could make payments to them.  Why would I want that?  And, it gave me the option of having all my payments be viewed publicly.  Why the hell would I want that?  It’s idiotic.  I canceled that.  then I “finally” made the payment.  To someone named Joe Schmo.  Since you haven’t yet confirmed receiving the $100, I presume that another Joe Schmo is enjoying my $100 and buying something frivolous.

So, that whole chore is done.  I then see I have some new e-mails.  There are warning e-mails that “someone” logged into my account from a Samsung.  Then another e-mail asking me if my Samsung should be remembered and not cause me to have to log in every time and receive a verification code.  And yet more e-mails from Venmo because they are so afraid that someone else is using my Venmo from a Samsung cell phone.

If Venmo is so concerned about fraud, etc., and pretends it has no knowledge of any of my devices, then why did it only give me the option to install the app to my exact Samsung Galaxy S7??????? ??????????????  I ask you that‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼!