I currently use only Venmo (hairdresser, friends, nibbling birthdays, dog trainer, etc).
However, S’s new landlord (yes, he got apartment!) said he accepts Venmo, Zelle, Pay Pal (and of course check) to pay monthly rent. S doesn’t have a checkbook. I much prefer him to use some digital form of payment for landlord.
He has a Venmo currently and uses it often. It’s tied to his credit card (not bank).
But, f/b please. Which do you all prefer to use, and under which circumstances might you use one over another and why?
My understanding is that Zelle draws only from bank accounts, not credit cards, and there are no fees. Our financial guy has told us Zelle is more secure but I don’t know if that’s really the case. We’ve used all three depending on what we are doing and who accepts what.
I’d be curious what makes that person say Zelle is more secure. I don’t think it is necessarily more secure. PayPal and Venmo are the same company so as between the two, it’s a preference. You can pull from a bank account. It does not have to be a CC.
So with that line of thinking I’d imagine S’s landlord would be totally fine with Venmo (like he said) and may even prefer if even though he’s not disclosing that. But even more reason to stick with Venmo then….
My son’s current landlord, apparently, only accepts Venmo payments. I haven’t pursued asking about other payment forms for rent because Venmo works well for me. The previous landlord wanted to be paid via transfer. We actually set up a separate bank account just for paying son’s rent. My husband felt the landlord was shady and didn’t want him having access to our joint account.
Edit: just saw that someone upthread said Zelle can’t be used for business transactions so I need to check on that.
A slightly different thought, I have just recently started using checks again with contractors who do work at my home. After some shoddy work, and no easy recourse to get back the money paid with credit card, I went back to checks because if we realize someone did a lousy job, we at least have a couple of days to stop payment.
No clue about a landlord - do know Paypal takes a transaction fee - I use it to invoice clients and I pay a transaction fee on all payments. I did not think Venmo could be used for business and even had a vendor ask me to put “dinner out” in the memo field when I paid them for work and not dinner out ! Maybe I should look into that and it has changed? We use Zelle for our kid’s monthly allowance, as it goes right into their bank account and we use Venmo for little treat $ - ie: treat yourself for finals week.
We also received Zelle info as a way to give a bride and groom their wedding gift vs mailing a check. It was done in a private way, as they are family and I plan on using Venmo to pay all the hs grads and college grads this graduation season - save on cards that way too
Zelle is sponsored by banks (though not every bank offers it), so it typically has the advantage in avoiding extra fees that some people find hard to avoid with Paypal / Venmo (seems that even when instructions on how to avoid fees for personal transactions are given, some people do not follow them properly, resulting in the fees being charged).
Credit card chargebacks did not work for you in these situations?
I rarely pay others via any of these platforms, and am old fashioned and typically pay bills by check.
That said, I am self-employed and my clients either send me a check, pay me through Venmo, or many pay me through Zelle which directly goes into my bank account. I don’t use PayPal as they deduct a fee if a client pays me.
Venmo has fees for business transactions. You can get around this by marking it as personal, but I would be concerned that if you end up in a dispute with a landlord, then it might be harder to prove that the payments were made for rent. Also, given PayPal wants to make money, I would expect them to crack down on mislabeled Venmo payments at some point. Remember that PayPal was once free too.
Zelle is easy once it is set up, and you can use it for goods and services without charges. Because it’s run by the banks it would be hard for them to impose charges that were different to using a debit card or writing a check.
Yes, that would work, but that’s a lot of rigmarole right? It’s far easier to just call and say “hey, can Joe come and sort out this thing? Then I’ll be happy to remove the stop payment or write a new check.”
Example, just yesterday, I had a drain snaked. The guy didn’t use a high pressure spray to clear it though at the end. By the time he was finished, I forgot he said he was going to do that. So I can call the company and if they give me a hard time, I can stop the payment until they complete the job.
