
Venmo is offering users an physical debit card - janober
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/venmo-is-offering-users-an-ugly-physical-debit-card
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kenneth
Am I the only one who refuses to use Venmo? When I need to pay friends
casually, I use Facebook Messenger, Square Cash, or even PayPal (which is
really easy in Slack with the `/paypal` command these days).

I have no interest in using an app that by default broadcasts my transactions
to everyone, and that makes it a pain to get money out of its non-FDIC insured
closed system. With Facebook or Square, the money gets pushed and pulled
directly to my bank account, simply by adding a debit card.

Plus, when I did try to sign up once a long time ago… it had the audacity of
asking for my SSN. I flat-out refused and refused to use Venmo ever since.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Paypal is awful. It's not to be trusted under any circumstances. They often
reverse your transactions and lock your account for any reason, or no reason.

A friend of mine offered a student some programming help. They used Paypal to
pay. The student decided they didn't want to pay and told Paypal it was a
fraudulent charge. Now my friend doesn't have the money and a strike against
their account. (They contested that the charge was valid, but Paypal didn't
care.)

BTC sadly is up to $3 in transaction fees, so it's not too lightweight at this
point.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Bitcoin Cash is a fork of BTC with large blocks, which increases capacity and
therefore reduces fees. They're about US$0.01 right now.

~~~
dmm
I recently had two < $.50 fee BTC transactions quickly verified. Segwit, among
other things, is a block increase and enables the lightning network which will
allow fast, cheap transfers.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Worth noting that the Lightning network is off-chain. Whether you care about
that or not is up to you.

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mixmastamyk
These services exist only because the US banking system is still mostly stuck
in the seventies.

During a contract in New Zealand we'd send .25 to pay for a cookie or several
thousand for an apartment deposit without blinking an eye, took a few clicks,
free.

How? The banks talk to each other ((boggle)).

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samfriedman
I don't get the use of a physical Venmo card. I solely use the app to split
bills with my friends, and almost always cash out as soon as I'm paid up. And
that's not a knock against the app: I think it's one of the most useful I've
experienced.

It seems like this would just give me a debit card for a service which is
already linked to my real debit card. Is this targeted at those who _don 't_
have existing lines of credit/debit and want to use Venmo? What am I missing
here?

~~~
burkaman
It's slightly more frictionless because you don't have to wait for the money
to transfer. Might also be useful for psychological budgeting purposes. You
pay for dinner with your Venmo card, your friends pay you back in the app, you
know the whole time that you're just spending your entertainment money, not
your rent money.

~~~
samfriedman
True, this is much more "instant" and definitely has a psychological effect of
only working with the separate Venmo money you've accrued.

I think the next frontier of these bill-share/social payment apps will be in
tighter, seamless bill-share integration. A store where I can easily split the
payment between a few people at checkout, or a restaurant that has the Venmo
addresses of everyone in my party at the time of the reservation. No need to
photograph receipts and split after the fact.

~~~
burkaman
I think that already exists.

[https://venmo.com/business](https://venmo.com/business)

[https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-
us/articles/217532327-Splitting...](https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-
us/articles/217532327-Splitting-Sharing-Purchases)

I've never seen it in the wild though.

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asidiali
Similarly, Square's Cash app has had quite a sleek physical debit card
offering for some time now.

[https://cash.me](https://cash.me)

~~~
Splendor
That's referenced in the first sentence of the article.

~~~
asidiali
Noted, thanks. I'm just reiterating the fact that it's been available for
quite some time and IMO the experience with their app and card is well
executed. I much prefer it to Venmo.

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Larrikin
With Zelle finally rolling out properly to the big banks, I've started slowly
converting friends and family away from Venmo. No need to have money flowing
through PayPal and unnecessarily risk it being frozen for arbitrary reasons.

~~~
kentosi
Last I checked Zelle didn't allow you to link to a credit card. Is this still
the case?

~~~
Larrikin
They're supposed to be releasing an app sometime this week, but all the
literature I read makes Zelle out to be a connection between bank accounts
with debit cards being a work around. If credit cards were allowed, like on
Venmo, I assume there would be a fee involved to prevent point churning. If
that is the case why would you want to link a credit card?

Is there any payment service like Zelle or Venmo that allows credit cards
without a fee?

~~~
yazaddaruvala
That would not be possible. Credit card companies enforce this fee, i.e. Venmo
has no choice.

Meanwhile, most credit cards give points on dollars spent. If the fees are
waived, you and a friend can make a lot of free points. Basically crazy
arbitrage would ensue and the program would be ended instantly.

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mrbill
This is not any different from the Paypal Debit card that Paypal (owner of
Venmo) offers, no?

BTW, Paypal now offers almost-instant transfers to a debit card account for a
25c fee (I think it was). I did one of these over the weekend and it was done
almost faster than I could log into my bank account and check.

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chromakode
I love these cards (Google Wallet used to have one, Square Cash now offers one
too) for a different reason from possibly intended: they're a great fallback
in case you want to make a purchase where contactless phone payment isn't
supported but plastic is. I keep one in my running armband with my phone in
case of emergencies and it never leaves the band. That way I never forget it,
and if I were to lose it somewhere, I'd still have all of my regular credit
cards.

~~~
hammock
Lol where do you live that everywhere accepts mobile pay? Some utopia in the
sky?

~~~
problems
In Canada we've had contactless card readers for a few years now - the mobile
payments are compatible with the exact same protocol, so instead of tapping
your card you just tap your phone.

I haven't even gotten any funny looks tapping my phone with Android Pay at
places not advertising it - even just after it came out in Canada.

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blkhp19
"an physical debit card" ? I swear I see this mistake so often it makes me
question whether I actually understand when to use "an"...

~~~
wrigby
The actual headline is 'Venmo is offering users an (ugly) physical debit
card,' so the '(ugly)' part complicates this. From a quick search, it seems
like 'an' is correct here, because the '(ugly)' part isn't an independent
clause... or something like that.

~~~
NoodleIncident
"a" vs "an" is solely a matter of pronunciation; you go off of the next word
no matter what it is.

~~~
wrigby
That's what I had assumed, but this grammar StackExchange[1] answer seemed to
specify that there are exceptions. Admittedly, I didn't read the articles he
linked.

1:
[https://english.stackexchange.com/a/115200](https://english.stackexchange.com/a/115200)

~~~
umanwizard
> I need an (well, if I need anything at all) idiom.

This is not an English sentence. No native English speaker would produce this
(regardless of a/an)

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dabernathy89
I'm still bitter that they killed off their API. They were basically the only
popular individual-to-individual payments system with a public API (now there
are none). So many cool apps could have been built with it, but instead they
decided to divert their resources to their API for vendor payments (which, of
course, is _not_ why people use Venmo).

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brosky117
I tend to leave a pretty decent amount of money in my Venmo account. I
consider it my "play" money. Usually, I have my buddy use his reward credit
card and I Venmo my part of the bill (mutually beneficial). Having a card
would make things a lot simpler for me.

~~~
ultimoo
Interesting, do you then always forfeit the credit card rewards to your
friend? Everyone's situation is different but usually credit card points can
be quiet valuable coming in at 3% to 5% of the swiped amount.

(For example, $1000 spent on wining and dining over a month can equal
approximately $20 to $50, depending on how you spend your reward points).

~~~
brosky117
Yup. That's the trade I guess :)

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dheera
What's the point of this? I remember Google doing something similar with
Android Pay and a physical Google Wallet card and it was equally useless.

I use physical cards only because of the 2-5% cashback. If they don't offer
the same levels of cashback as the Chase/Amazon/etc. plastic cards do, I see
zero point in having a Venmo debit card.

I use Venmo only because I need to send money to friends. For that, a physical
card is not necessary.

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DeonPenny
I like how they are keeping the ugly design theme going

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colinsidoti
If this card could be funded by my points-generating credit card - with no
extra cost - I would be very happy.

~~~
kentosi
Very unlikely. Credit card companies charge fees, which is why such apps
(venmo, cash-me, etc) all just push that fee onto you. Usually 3%.

~~~
colinsidoti
I believe the 3% could still be shouldered by the business, if I'm swiping
with them. Venmo would just be sitting in the middle of the transaction so
they can prompt me to charge my friends.

I think this is possible with Marqeta today: www.marqeta.com

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ARCarr
But why a ball of dough?

~~~
striking
Probably something to do with "dough" being a metonym for money?

Really contrived and silly, though. They could've just made it monochromatic
with a huge Venmo logo on it.

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alkonaut
Do all these new wallet players allow paying between each other? so if you
split a bill, one can have Venmo and one can have some other
app/service/wallet?

