Venmo users should be sure to change privacy settings.
I have relatives who have not tightened up the defaul Venmo privacy settings. Since they are in my Contacts, Venmo shows me their transactions with others… even though I’ve actually never had any Venmo transactions with them myself. Kindof creepy.
If you’re the payor (e.g., you’re not the one coverging the fees), then PayPal before Venmo before Zelle - because with PayPal you have the best purchase protection, while there is none with Zelle.
The advantage of Zelle is, money is moved directly between two bank accounts - there is no “balance”, fees are none to minimal - but transactions are final!
So as the payee, that’s how I would want to be paid.
To pay a landlord, Zelle would be fine - because you’re making contract payments and you don’t need “purchase protection”. But for ad-hoc purchases from new parties (no prior business history), I would avoid Zelle.
I’ve found the most difficult thing with Zelle is knowing how to pronounce it. Is it Zell-E? Or just Zell?
A few comments:
Frauds associated with these instant payment methods are increasing at an alarming rate. Using them to pay people you know and trust is convenient and fine, but you’re taking a risk when you use them to pay strangers, or entities you don’t fully trust.
These payment methods always charge a fee (typically 2.5-4%) when they’re linked to and paid with a credit card.
The best way to pay rent is via a credit card called Bilt MasterCard from Wells Fargo. There’s no annual fee and no fee to use it to pay any landlord. You’ll even earn one transferrable mile/point for each dollar you spend on rent.
DH is dead set against any platform that links directly to our bank account, bc he is in digital security and feels the risk (of the bank acct being compromised) is too high. Is the common work around a separate bank account for these transfers?
We don’t have much reason to use any of these but have an estate to liquidate piece by piece and I see most people want to pay thru Venmo or Paypal (less often). I need a way to do that – separatebank account is the solution?
We set up an estate account when my parents died.
We have many many things to disperse, after the estate has closed and finalized, sorry if I was not clear.
Just an fyi – my son’s rent is paid through Venmo and the only hassle is Venmo does not do recurring payments so has to be set up each month rather than auto pay.
I shop online frequently and use PayPal a lot, linked to my credit card, never charged a fee.
I think your vendor might be paying that fee…and that very well could be reflected in the price they charge.
That’s different. That’s using PayPal only as a digital wallet (same as if you used your credit card directly, similar to ApplePay or GooglePay) and I do that sometimes too. PayPal charges a fee (2.9%?)when you use it to pay a party that doesn’t accept credit card.
Could you just write a check at the end, with consolidated amount? (Of course if it is a big amount, it may mean a trip to the bank for recipient if too much for deposit-by-cellphone, I think $2500 is the cliplevel at my credit union.)
Note: It took me a long time to try check deposit via cellphone because there was a credit union office near my work cafeteria… very easy to pop by. But it is pretty easy to do, love saving a trip to the bank now that I’m retired.
If that is a concern, yes, that is a work around. The same can apply to paper checks, since anyone can read your account number and bank routing number off the bottom of the check.
deleted - redundant.
Yea, I have wondered what keeps somebody from using the numbers on one of my checks to set up a direct payment. If small-ish amount, it could be a month before I noticed when balancing the checkbook.
@1NJParent, I’m intrigued. How does the Bilt Mastercard avoid a transaction fee from the landlord when it is used to pay rent?
We use Venmo (as do our kids and, I believe, most everyone under the age of 30 as well as many others) and Paypal. We have an account whose purpose is to have a bit of money in it for use at the ATM. Venmo and Paypal are connected to that account. So, there is a relatively low limit on how much one could fraudulently get from this account. It was once emptied by someone in Germany with a skimmer, I believe, and ultimately the bank reimbursed us for the losses (around $2K or $3K).
We have two local banks and neither is affiliated with Zelle. So we have never used it. We have accounts at brokerage firms and at a Canadian bank (Canadians seem to use Interac to make bank account to bank account transfers). We write checks on one of our brokerage accounts. Other than Venmo from the two local banks and checks written on our brokerage account, there is no way to withdraw funds from any of our accounts without a written and verbal confirmation from me or ShawWife.
The consumer protections are strongest with credit card payments relative to digital payments or checks. So, I pay as much as possible with credit cards.
I use Paypal for a lot of credit card payments to vendors so they never get my credit card number. I don’t believe we have had any problems with Paypal.
ShawD just signed the purchase and sale agreement for a house, so no more rent payments for her. But she will be a landlord beginning June 1. I will tell her about apartments.com, @anon87843660. Thanks.
Not sure how ShawSon makes his rent payments.
Wells Fargo, as an issuer of the Bilt MasterCard, doesn’t charge the interchange/swipe fee. I assume it absorbs the fee the MasterCard payment processing network charges, which is only a tiny fraction of the interchange fee (about 0.01%). It also rewards the credit card user 1 mile/point (at its own cost of about 0.5-0.7% or so) for using its card. So in the rent payment transaction (which can be no more than once a month), it’d take a loss, which it hopes to recover (and more) from the other transactions the user makes.
Family member works in property management. They only take a cashier check for the deposit. Rents pay,ent via check ( many get a check sent direct from the bank). A company called Zego which charges the resident a small fee. I think some of the landlords take Zelle. Also many companies use property management software by AppFolio or Yardi and they have their own online payment apps.
Would that include Zelle? Since it’s the bank that’s linking it. And the payee never gets any bank information, just that the funds were deposited in their account. There’s no way to remove funds unless I do it, as much as I can tell.
