A woman says she decided to be a “good Samaritan” when a stranger sent her $500 on Venmo. But the decision could cost her.
In a video posted on Sunday with over 444,000 views, TikToker Julisa Pena (@julisapenaa) says she woke up to a notification that someone she didn’t know had sent her $500 on Venmo, a mobile payment service.
“Financially, things have been rough for me. This is a dream come true,” she says in the clip.
But she says when she clicked on the notification, the user had commented, “I’m so sorry. I accidentally paid you. Can I please have it back?”
She says she considered ignoring the request but decided to “be a good person” and return the money.
“It was either send it back and have him reward me, being like, ‘Oh, this is just a test. Congrats. You win a million dollars!’ or just send it back and never see that money again,” she continues.
Pena says the user responded “thanks” and didn’t communicate with her further.
Viewers warn of common Venmo scam
In the comments, viewers warn Pena that the “mistaken” Venmo was likely a scam.
“Girl!! That’s classic Venmo scam!!” one wrote.
“If you ever get random money sent to you, leave it there. Don’t touch it, don’t send it back. Let the sender resolve it on their end,” another urged.
“The only proper response is no response. If it’s a legit error, they can call Venmo,” a third suggested.
The Daily Dot has previously reported on TikTokers who have encountered the same situation, including a woman who decided not to send back $300, believing it was a scam.
However, some commenters say they’ve mistakenly sent money through Venmo to the wrong person.
“This happened to me. I sent $700 to the wrong phone #. Thank God that person had the heart to send my money back ’cause I was broke and couldn’t send another 700 to the right person,” a viewer wrote.
“My dad accidentally sent someone money on cash app when he was supposed to be sending it to me but he wasn’t all the way awake. He didn’t get that lucky though because they didn’t send it back lol,” another said.
“2 years ago, I accidentally sent the 800$ rent to the wrong landlord bc it was our first month there. Thankfully, the guy sent it back, so I sent him 50$ for being kind,” a third added.
How does the scam work?
In a follow-up video, Pena doubles down, saying she doesn’t believe she was scammed.
“I sent back the money, not from my card, but from my Venmo balance,” she explains. “None of my information was on there.”
However, viewers explain that she could still lose $500 of her own since she sent the money back.
“This happened to me. You’re going to go negative $500. Try and contact Venmo CS soon and get ahead of it,” one suggested.
“This happened to my aunt. You’ll owe Venmo,” another said.
“You should have contacted Venmo customer service and asked because this is a very common scam but I hope you didn’t either,” a third wrote.
According to Venmo’s website, payments from strangers who claim they sent money on accident is a common scam. The company suggests contacting support to reverse the payment and blocking the user.
But how does the scam work?
A user may use stolen credit card details to fund the initial payment, according to Bitdefender. Once the rightful owner of the credit card notices the funds, they will contact their bank to reverse the payment. But if you’ve already sent the money back, the user could cash out and send you into the negative—even if you didn’t use your card to send the money.
Did the TikToker lose money?
At commenters’ suggestion, Pena says she contacted Venmo support to ask if the transaction was a scam in another follow-up video.
“The reason I’m almost positive I wasn’t scammed is because I got on the phone with Venmo, and the lady is aware of this common scam,” she explains. “She said the person that Venmo’d me $500 immediately sent it to someone else with my name.”
@julisapenaa anyways
♬ original sound – julisa💋
The Daily Dot reached out to Pena via email and TikTok direct message. We also emailed Venmo for further comment.
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