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Fed’s new instant payment system could be trouble for PayPal, Venmo
(arstechnica.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
While I’ve used PayPal for, holy shit, decades… my recent need to move cash around with my Gen Z children caused me to venture into Venmo and CashApp. While I’m skeptical of the proper execution of anything new the federal government introduces, I can’t imagine they could create a WORSE experience than these new-age, middle-man processors. I’ve had to call my bank more times in the last two weeks to unlock fraud alerts than I have in the past twenty years. Then, after doing that, the damned processors themselves start declining $5 transactions for no apparent reason. I’d sooner poke myself in the eye than try to make a payment.
Venmo is owned by PayPal.
While that is true, I have also had issues with Venmo that I have never had with PayPal. I have no clue what the back-end difference is, but I stopped using Venmo after they decided a small payment to a friend was suspicious and locked my account. Meanwhile, payments to that same friend via PayPal have been fine.
I've been locked out of my PayPal since 2005. On their end my account is somehow both locked and nonexistent, creating a loop of error messages. Last time I tried to have a real human fix it they basically shrugged, and that was about 7 years ago haha