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Comment by extr | Hacker News Reader

Young millennial male, every single person I know uses Venmo. IMO this article largely misses the point of the app. It's replaced cash/checks is all, it's not some huge social upheaval in the way we use money that needs to be analyzed. In my experience it's rarely used for splitting bills for dinner or picking up bar tabs (I can't remember the last time I went somewhere that wasn't able to split the bill on their end?), but more around casual "I'm going to go to the store, you need something?" "Yeah, get me some ice cream. I'll venmo you.". Or for utility payments among roommates.

The guy who was nagging you to give him $3 cash for the cab ride is now requesting $3 from you on venmo for the uber, but it's the same guy, and he still needs to chill out and remember you split your case of beer with him last week.

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"every single person I know uses Venmo"

How does that happen. I don't know a single person who uses Venmo. Not one. I know a lot of people and I work in Tech.

Venmo is, effectively, a social network; it's going to get popular along social lines. Depending on whether it's caught on among your immediate friends and acquaintances, you'd expect to either know a lot of people using Venmo or very few.

In India a lot of people use Splitwise. I am on it and my bill splitting, and personal borrowing/leding records are handled by the app. Though it doesn't handle actual money transfers yet; they have no such integrations.

Is Venmo similar?

https://www.splitwise.com

They've recently added support for settling via Paytm (which is the most popular mobile wallet in India) and I believe they also support Paypal.

I love Splitwise; almost all of my friends at uni use it and pretty much all shared expenses go on it. I also use Walnut (http://www.getwalnut.com/), not for the settlement feature, but rather for the expense tracking which automatically reads SMSes and builds up monthly expense reports.

Who is they in your first paragraph? Venmo? Or Splitwise? Venmo supporting PayPal makes complete sense considering it is a subsidiary of a subsidiary of PayPal.

If it's Splitwise, then it seems like PayPal doesn't care so much for propping up Venmo. Interesting either way.

Walnut seems like an interesting product. Thanks for the link.

Sorry for the ambiguity, it's Splitwise.

Think twice about using Walnut. Their business model is selling your financial details to the highest bidder. They claim it's as innocuous as wealthy users being contacted about investment opportunities, but I wouldn't take their word for it.

Far better to use a vanilla expense manager. Maybe it takes an extra second to enter the details of the transaction but at least your data never leaves your device. That's the way it should be.

Not really. In the US, Splitwise has a "settle up" button that lets your record a cash payment or use Venmo or Paypal to send the correct amount owed to the other person. Splitwise keeps track of who owes who. Venmo lets you pay them.

charismatic early adopter is among the peer group would be my guess.

I'm 19 and most people I know use Venmo. I'm curious - around what age are your friends? My parents don't know what Venmo is, and I don't think many of their friends (most in the age range of 40-60) do either.

> I'm 19 and most people I know use Venmo. I'm curious - around what age are your friends? My parents don't know what Venmo is, and I don't think many of their friends (most in the age range of 40-60) do either.

Made in 1987 here. I have Paypal as well but I prefer Google Wallet. Google Wallet is directly connected to my bank account. I don't trust Paypal to connect it to my bank account. Why would you trust Venmo with your bank account I would never know. Am I... am I too old and too conservative?

I have a separate bank account for Venmo that I keep capped at a few hundred dollars. Getting robbed a few hundred is much better than a few thousand, and for the convenience of Venmo (especially on a college campus) it's a fine risk for me.

Serious question: We all know PayPal has a penchant for freezing/seizing PayPal balances, but is there actually a single known case of them actually initiating an unwanted bank account transfer without the user initiating it (or someone otherwise losing money via Venmo)? Is this fear even rational?

I can understand not wanting to support the company as a matter of principle, but I'm not sure I buy the risk angle.

Venmo was bought by Braintree which was bought by PayPal so venmo is basically PayPal now anyway. Everyone I know also uses venmo (Bay Area tech employees in their twenties).

I prefer square cash, but this entire app ecosystem only exists because American banks don't allow free wires for some reason.

The only people I know who use google wallet are google employees.

As far as trust there's pretty limited risk, lots of protection/laws around bank access and easy to audit.

> I prefer square cash, but this entire app ecosystem only exists because American banks don't allow free wires for some reason.

Ah - I kept wondering what the main hook for these services was, appreciate efficiency and social effects are the USP, but wondered what the main reason was over and above just a direct transfer from your mobile banking app (how most people I know here in the UK do this).

Lots of banks here (US) offer a p2p transfer services of some sort, but often, it's not as simple to use. For example, through Ally bank, I can send money to someone using PopMoney--

* If I know their bank routing number and account number, I can just send them money directly without any involvement on their end.

    * Most people will not just give out their account info, even though it's on every check they write.

* I can use email or mobile phone to send a payment, but then the person on the other end has to deal with entering the same info into popmoney to accept the transaction. At that point, they have to trust popmoney.

None of this would be a problem except that each bank uses a different system. Chase uses ChasePay. Ally and PNC use PopMoney. There are several others. This causes a lot of friction when sending money. "Oh, you use chase pay? Now I have to set up an account there, too."

Venmo (and others) let you abstract away the bank details. Everyone in your friend group signs up for 1 account (and it could be a competing service. I like Sqaure Cash) and is ready to send. They also offer better account lookup and the ability to send a payment request.

Most US banks I've dealt with (Wells Fargo, BoA, Simple) allow transfer for free to other members of the same bank, but wiring to another bank can be upwards of $30 (if you can do it at all).

They also often require using a clunky web UI without an ability to do it from a mobile app.

I can actually relate quite a bit to this. I waited somewhere between 1 and 2 years before setting up Venmo just because I didn't want to hook it up to my bank account. Only after seeing all of my friends using it did I finally set up a Venmo account.

If you don't trust Paypal, I can understand why you don't trust Venmo.

From the footer of https://venmo.com/

Venmo is a service of PayPal, Inc., a licensed provider of money transfer services (NMLS ID: 910457). All money transmission is provided by PayPal, Inc. pursuant to PayPal, Inc.’s licenses. © 2017 PayPal, Inc.

Born in late 70's here, and I've been using Google Wallet like this as well. I used PayPal for things like eBay back in the day before it became such a cluster, and I still occasionally use it when some ticketing system requires it.

But for the past several years I've just defaulted to Wallet ever since they added the ability to attach money to an email like you're attaching a file. I know it's just UI but that was sort of brilliant (if done in the typical fuss-less Google fashion so most don't even notice it).

So while I still lean toward buying rounds or taking turns paying for things with friends I see often, occasionally I'll be out someplace and unexpectedly need cash without a nearby ATM. If a friend has cash, I can just send them funds to pay back. Same goes the other way around.

Other times it's something like ordering tickets to an event and I just buy for myself and a few friends at the same time. Then if they end up going, they can forward me funds at their leisure and no messing with ATMs or writing checks.

Sounds like Venmo is used in a similar way but I've not started using it if only because I already have something I'm satisfied with and the handful of people who even want to use such a thing have it as well. I tend not to proselytize to other people who don't express an interest in doing things this way, but I've yet to run into anyone who is using Venmo.

Although maybe half a year ago I was single for the first time in years and saw a lot of people mostly-jokingly (I hope) on Tinder asking people to Venmo them $5 to get their attention. Seemed like either a cynical/ironic "why not?" sort of joke or the least ambitious prostitutes in history.

Around 40 here and I’ve never heard of Venmo. I don’t know if any of my social circle use it but nobody’s mentioned it.

My uncle (mid 40s) who I got into Venmo has never heard of it in his social circle either. Connecting his contacts showed two people he knew around his age using it pretty actively. Besides that though, his activity feed is barren compared to mine (late 20s).

I'm 20 and I've never heard of Venmo outside of HN. To be fair, I am also in Australia, so it's more likely that it just hasn't caught on. The major bank here (CommBank) has made paying other people frictionless (you can send money to a phone number, via NFC, cardless cash, or just by regular transfer) so it's likely that Venmo wouldn't have much of a market here.

Yeah, Venmo is US only at the moment

It's really good for situations where you have large groups of people that all need to informally pay a small amount of money. If you've ever organized an event like this (like say...a college party), you know how annoying it is to chase down crumpled $1 bills from people. Venmo handily solves the problem so I'm sure that's why it caught on among this demo so quickly.

I only know 1, I also work in tech.

I, have found developers and other tech workers to be, somewhat ironically, more "Ludditic" than the general population.

I think it's because we've seen behind the curtain. Product X isn't as magical, and we've seen how it can go horribly wrong.

I wonder if mechanical engineers tend to be safer drivers...

I think it's a u-curve. Either you are hypervigilant about your personal information and security, or you relax and accept the inevitable.

I have one data point in the form of my father, who is a mechanical engineer. He always knew what you absolutely shouldn't do with your car, like give it gas on turns(wears cv joints in fwd vehicles) or keep the clutch depressed when you're standing still(wears some bearings I don't remember the name of).

He has had the same car for the past 25 years now.

" keep the clutch depressed when you're standing still(wears some bearings I don't remember the name of)."

throwout bearing

>keep the clutch depressed when you're standing still(wears some bearings I don't remember the name of).

It's the throwout bearing. Your father has a point, but I would rather keep the clutch in. Too much thinking involved putting it in neutral every time you stop.

Not putting it in neutral when stopped can contribute to failing your driving test in the U.K.

Aside from reducing wear on the throwout bearing, what is the purpose?

Not having the car jerk forward if your foot slips off the clutch.

Which it may well do if you get rear-ended. One 'accident' can become two.

Technically you're supposed to hold on brakes or a hand brake while idle, which makes both points moot. Especially important in clutchless cars or other auto transmissions.

The brakes will hold a slipped clutch and a rear end.

The clutch has an added benefit of you get rear ended and drop it - engine braking is a thing. Not good for the engine, potentially good for your forward bumper when you get reared.

> The clutch has an added benefit of you get rear ended and drop it - engine braking is a thing.

There's no engine breaking when stopped, if the engine is running.

I typically do keep my foot on the brake when stopped in traffic. And I do balance brakes, clutch and throttle when stopped on a hill. But except for stop-and-go traffic, or when getting ready to punch it, using the clutch and brakes together seems pointless.

Safety. If clutch could fail mechanically while your foot was on it and the consequence of the failure would be the same as your foot slipping off, then it is safer to shift to neutral. I was taught this when I owned a 1980 VW Scirocco and my informant owned a 1980 Rabbit (Golf).

Interesting. In Australia you're required to keep it in 1st with the clutch in while at red lights.

For the P plate tests maybe, but that'd depend on the state too.

The way you phrased it makes me think of cops at lights just going around and aggressively throwing gear sticks into 1st.

I was responding to a post which said:

> Not putting it in neutral when stopped can contribute to failing your driving test in the U.K.

So the context was specifically driving tests.

If you need to think for thar, you're not driving enough :)

>If you need to think for thar, you're not driving enough :)

Aside from reducing the wear on the throwout bearing, what purpose is served by putting the car in neutral every time it is stopped in traffic?

It lets you take your foot off the clutch ;)

In all seriousness, that's why I did it. My first stick was a truck, and even though it was small, it has a stiff clutch. You got tired of standing on it.

> It lets you take your foot off the clutch ;)

If that's what you like, go for it, but two posts seemed to imply that I'm doing something wrong by keeping the vehicle in gear with the clutch in while stopped in traffic, and I'd really like to know what that is. One post implied that UK law encourages or even requires that the vehicle be taken out of gear when it's stopped in traffic. I've never heard anything like that in the US.

I've never encountered a clutch that took any noticeable effort for me to operate. And, considering all of the other bearings in a vehicle that are rotating under load constantly, I question the value of trying to save the throwout bearing a few extra seconds on each stop.

So I would really like to know why I should shift to neutral when stopped in traffic. Should I do it when I'm waiting for a break in the traffic in the oncoming lane so I can turn across it? (A left turn in the US.) When I'm stopping at a stop sign, and then immediately going because there is no other traffic around? When I'm stopped for a few seconds in a stop-and-go traffic jam?

As a UK driver, I was taught to shift to neutral and apply the parking brake when stopped for long enough to do so.

The reasoning given by my driving instructor was that this secures the vehicle and makes things just a little more safe for everyone.

If I am stopped in traffic with my parking brake on and sometime lightly rear-ends me, my vehicle may not move at all. If my parking brake were not applied, the probability of my vehicle not moving at all drops significantly.

If I am rear-ended without the parking brake applied such that my vehicle rear-ends someone in-front of me, I am partially responsible for the damage caused ahead due to my failure to secure my vehicle.

This is only tangentially related to taking my foot of the clutch. I depress the clutch in order to apply the parking brake correctly. Once the parking brake is applied, I simply have no need to continue to depress the clutch.

It takes me very little time to apply the parking brake and then release it and so I tend to do so when stopping for more than a second or two.

And many newer cars will stop the engine if you stop the car with the clutch up. And also can activate the parking break at the same time.

Many newer cars don't have a manual clutch anymore, so the brake is the only reasonable way. Idle only will typically coast in those. Parking gear/brake will work but is annoying to use - and it is better to use the foot brake anyway most of the time.

> like give it gas on turns(wears cv joints in fwd vehicles)

I'd rather replace my CV joints every 10 years than be that jerk who slows down to a crawl on every turn on a mountain road.

Depends on the app. Venmo depends on being social and going out a lot with friends, a lot of nerds are introverted.

I know zero. In fact, before I saw this post I didn't even know what it was.

Now, I'm pretty sure this is because I don't live in the US. Is this a purely US-specific service, or is it available (and used) anywhere else.

If not, are there similar services in other countries? I believe Wepay in China is something similar, but I don't know much about that one either.

It is slightly embarassing (or not) but I started uses WhatsApp (or any IM app) somewhere in early-mid 2016. And the final request came from my sister back in the village. She complained she couldn't add me on WhatsApp.

When I joined everyone was there and I was promptly added to tens of groups which I promptly left one by one.

I have been an Android developer for 6 years now.

Which groups did you get added to? I too was surprised getting added to multiple groups. I've silenced some. Left some. But stay in all the family ones. Did you leave family ones too?

Are you an old?

I didn't use it until I shared an apartment with some friends who were ~15 years younger than me. Every single one of their cohorts used it, all the time.

I've never even heard of Venmo before today, so maybe I'm just getting old ..

Most everyone in my office uses it. Makes picking up lunch for the group so much easier.

The only time I hear about it is when people on HN say everyone uses it.

The girls on tinder jokingly ask for it in their profiles.

Why downvoted? I have seen many Tinder profiles with "Send me/Venmo me $5 and see what happens". Scammy but true.

I don't think any of my friends use snapchat...and yet...

I've heard there's a West Coast/East Coast divide when it comes to Venmo with it being much more popular on the east coast.

It's really big at my large (10k - 30k) state university in California.

I've noticed it has entered the vocabulary of students at the university I'm at in Mississippi (where new trends seem to arrive later), so I assumed it was fairly popular across the country at this point.

How's college in Mississippi? I'm thinking not many HNers are in that state.

You old? (=

I am.

My neighbor's kid introduced me to it. Now I can't live without it. Being able to pay my maid or gardener when I'm not home... priceless. I never carry cash or a wallet any more. Slip an ID card in my phone case... good to go.

Be careful, they technically don't allow commercial transactions and will freeze your account (and reverse transactions) if they catch you. I got a stern warning after selling something on Craigslist and accepting payment via venmo, they must have figured it out by the note and lack of network of friends with the buyer.

That's a bad idea because you're likely to get scammed: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2015/09/venm...

Basically if you're doing a transaction with an untrusted person the time it takes for things to clear means you can be taken advantage of.

It is not about scams, but lost earnings from PayPal services which are expensive for a wire transfer.

Venmo has a similar dispute system and you can often bounce on credit card too.

I've heard getting scammed by people you don't know (I guess people you know too) is really easy on Venmo. Especially in cases like CL. Be careful.

Just another data point, everyone in my group of friends and even friends of friends uses Venmo. We're in our early 30s, many in tech and live in California.

I know lots of people who use venmo, in tech. (LA)

Likewise in the UK. We have Faster Payments and a heavily consolidated banking system here, turning banking apps into a de facto P2P payments platform.

Serious question: how old are you?

I’m 37 and probably wouldn’t know anyone using it in my normal social circle except I happen to know a bunch of ~24 yr olds (some younger) via a younger colleague.

Of those you are younger guess how many use Venmo? Every. Single. One.

Not every day, or all the time, but regularly: especially with friends & at weekends. It’s spread so we’ll split lunches at work occasionally with it.

Hell, there are several restaurants in Berkeley that allow you to pay with it because college kids use it so much.

I'm a 35 year founder of a small company in San Francisco. I had never heard of Venmo until recently. The dividing line among my team is around 30 years old. Below 30 -> use Venmo all the time. Above 30 -> never heard of it.

Sounds about right.

I much prefer it for payments amongst friends than anything else now though. It’s rather good.

I would love to know if the college crowd was a specific target for venmo: it’s nailed it

This divide isn't really an age thing IMHO, its an attitude about money (related to age) thing. In my early-mid 20s most of my friends were just starting out and counting every dollar. Taking the hit for an entire round of drinks or the pizza delivery was painful enough that you asked for everyone to chip in or at the very least had a careful mental accounting of whose turn it was to buy next (and if they somehow weaseled out if it, that was a strain on the friendship- and I am sure most have cut some moochers out of their life).

This may vary by your group and where they at in life, but by my late 20s, those things mattered a lot less. If I buy someone a beer, I just hope they will get me back at some point and if not, then I bought them a beer- no big deal-enjoy! (well enjoy, unless this is the fifth time in a row I have done this and you haven't gotten me back).

I am in my mid-late 30s, and I have Venmo. I just tend to not use it very often, only for fairly big ticket items- concert/event tickets, someone buys a gift for someone else that we all chip in on, a restaurant gives a hard time about taking multiple credit cards, etc.

I have not yet seen businesses accepting it as a form of payment, but that's really interesting and implies it's going the way of WeChat payments.

I’m not technically sure they’re allowed to do that via ToS - it’s the owners personal account - but it happens

I'm also in tech and never heard of it until my wife introduced me to it. Her and her friends use it regularly.

I'm 30, work in tech, and most of my friends and family (in my generation) use Venmo. Weirdly enough, I don't really use Venmo with my friends in tech (different circles).

Our use case tends to be for fantasy football, splitting vacation homes, hotels, bigger gifts for the parents, and other more expensive things. Replaces checks more than cash I'd say.

Hah. All this talk and I just realized yeah the more techy a person I know is, the less likely they use Venmo. The use cases I see are similar to your last paragraph.

I'm in tech. Never heard of it. I mentioned it to my wife, "Hey honey, have you heard of this neat app Venmo?" Her: "yeah, I use it all the time."

She viewed it like a newer paypal. She has paid friends with it, and they have paid her with it.

Hm. How old are you? I'm 27 and everyone I know uses Venmo. I'm not even in the valley or the bay.

Maybe he works at Venmo.

Have you used Venmo before? Either way, if you connect your contacts (not sure if it's just FB or overall contacts too), I have a hard time believing you won't see at least one semi-active person you know using it. To be sure, not saying you should connect your contact info to Venmo. It is a privacy matter after all.

Even my dad who has virtually no real friends outside the husbands of my mom's friends, had multiple contacts using Venmo when I got him to use the app so we would have an easier time paying for stuff between us.

I don't know a lot of people, but my Venmo activity feed of friends has at least a dozen transactions a week. I have ~300 FB friends and about half that in Venmo "friends".

Most people in my graduating class use Square Cash. The next oldest class, which graduated this year, mostly uses Venmo. Very much a social network effect

Same here. I only know about Venmo because the people who stole my credit card number used it to pay themselves.

For our generation, this pettiness goes the other way, too. I will literally try to buy lunch/coffee/dinner for someone, and after I've gone home, they've sent an unsolicited 'repayment' to me by Venmo. And on the other hand, it's difficult to "split your case of beer" with someone -- people are afraid to partake because they're worried you'll bill them afterwards, and they can't afford the $3 in this month's budget.

Wow, this sounds horrible. The day my friends think I'll bill them for splitting a case of beer is the day I've failed as a friend.

Sigh. This reminds me of an ex-roommate.

So I worked at a factory and he was a notary or some such function connected with real estate, working from home. One day I was running late for work, which was maybe fifteen minutes away by bicycle, and asked if he didn't mind giving me a lift. About halfway there he mentioned casually, "Oh, just so you know, I'll be billing you at my normal rate ($60/hr) for this ride." Thanks for the trouble, just pull over and I'll walk, buddy.

People may or may not have sane ideas about friendship and money.

That's a weird comment on his part, but I think there is often a large mismatch between the cost that a carless person assigns to "bumming a ride" and the cost that the car owner assigns to that. If you are not a car owner, you may not realize how much of a pain in the ass it is to stop whatever you are doing and play taxi.

The solution seems simple:

"I can't, I'm busy right now."

That's what people say when someone asks them to do something they don't want to, or where the cost outweighs the benefit.

He believed that money was God's way of showing favor, and somehow that worked out to, "Anything I do to get money is okay." He ended up appropriating most of my possessions. This was of course the first and last time I asked for a lift from that guy, so if you like you can consider him to have appropriately valued his time and effort. However, not mentioning that until we were in the car and driving was frankly extortionate. As I recall, he did back down on the charge rather than pull over, but it provided an extremely sharp life lesson.

Yeah, the two choices are either provide a free ride or don't provide one at all. Billing people for rides is bizarre behavior.

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly how I feel.

If someone grabs a tab and sends me a Venmo bill, I'll happily send them their money. I would have rather grabbed the tab the next time. I won't be doing both.

(And vis a versa - If I say "I've got the tab" and the person sent me money, I'd be much less likely to invite them out in the future. I'd rather they just invited me out and grabbed a round.)

I'm not sure this is anything new though. Even before Venmo, I've always had friends who were overly concerned with keeping things "even" between us and friends who were very loose with money and wouldn't mind spotting me $20 with no immediate expectation of repayment. It's one of those social things that really depends on the history, social norms, income...etc of those involved. I try to just go with whatever makes people comfortable without thinking about it too much. And for friends I already have a set of expectations.

Also, beer example was just meant to highlight that friend we all have who practices "selective accounting" with our informal running tab. If I had any suspicion that $3 is make or break to someone I would gladly pay them what's owed and forget about the beer. Beer (and all vices really) have their own set of norms.

IMO, politeness should also take account norms that make the other party feel the most comfortable (within reason of course).

It took me a long time to learn that when your friend's dad tells you 'Please just call me John', continuing to address him as 'Mr. Smith' is less polite, not more. Same thing with money.

I got my landlord onto Venmo to pay utilities. She wanted a check slipped under her door. That wasn't happening. Now she just requests the amount every month and all I have to do is tap "Pay".

Did you look into online bill pay?

I had a landlord who wanted paid by check... I was able to set up an online bill pay with my credit union that automatically mailed out a physical check each month.

I was happy because I could automate it like I did my other bills, she was happy because she didn't have to pay credit card processing fees.

As the other HNer noted below, we've had free BillPay in banks for decades now. It's also safer than Venmo.

I don't mind being a wet blanket and these are communications issues not payment facilitation issues.

Explain to people why it is frustrating that they don't communicate how you're going to split things before doing it and don't expect anything back when you give away half a case of beer.

Both are equal offenses in the same class.

In my experience, many restaurants have a limit on how many ways they can split the bill, usually 2-4, so for larger groups venmo is an easy way to solve the issue. And there certainly are some restaurants that don't split at all (seems to be a regional thing).

Restaurants have a limit on how many ways they will split the bill.

I used to wait tables and it's annoying to split many ways, but every POS system I ever used allowed splitting many ways. I never tested for an upper limit, but I soul routinely split to mid-teens of separate checks.

I get that part of the reason is credit card merchant fees -- someone is paying for my 2x dining-out credit card points, after all. But part of the reason also is wait staff time... time spent running six separate cards is time not spent getting drinks or food.

Maybe I'm just a tech-city millennial who hates interacting with people, but I've always kinda wondered why there isn't any POS system that prints out a QR or text code you can punch into your smartphone to pull up a digital receipt that you can claim what items were yours, auto-tally tax and tip, and just pay for it digitally or yes, even venmo-invoice everyone in the group.

Yes, I realize this is exactly the behavior the article was talking about it, but honestly, that article was a little "get off my lawn"-ish. If it's a beer, sure, I'll get a round, but if it's a 6-person birthday party where some people get the $12 salad because they're making teacher salary and the tech-bro's get the $36 steak but you all still want to be friends without the awkwardness different financial or socioeconomic situations getting in the way, then yes, everyone paying whatever they ordered makes sense.

Technology enables new behaviors and new norms, honestly.

If it means the guy or girl who gets 2x points on restaurant bills and making tech money fronts the bill and venmos what everyone ordered later, so be it. I would ask why isn't that even easier yet with my self-invoice-via-digital-bill-and-save-the-server-from-running-6-separate-cards app?

Red Robin has little tablets at the table you can use to select your items and pay your portion of the bill (among other things, like signal a waiter or play silly games). I thought it was clever.

That said, the situation where someone ordered a $12 entree while someone else ordered a $36 one was solved when everyone paid in cash -- you just throw in your portion. It was only when everyone was trying to pay by card that this became an issue (which Venmo and ilk addressed).

People claiming that paying different amounts is some kind of "modern" problem are just ignorant of history -- everyone paying by card and splitting a bill being difficult is the modern problem.

I get airline points for putting charges on my credit card. 2x for restaurants. So at meetups, I drop the 300-400$ bill on the card, get Venmos from everyone, cash is dropped directly into my bank account with no skimming. Boom, free points.

>"In my experience, many restaurants have a limit on how many ways they can split the bill,"

That limit is artificially imposed though isn't? I also think this is mostly an American thing because its perceived as a "hassle" which is ironic because they're being tipped for their "service" in the US.

In Sweden I noticed for instance instance you can get a meal with a group of 10 people and at the end of the meal the server will walk around with card machine and run the individual cards at the table. It's not seen as a hassle at all just part of the job.

I only experienced this resistance to splitting bills in New York. Where I live now, largish city in the South, they'll gladly split the bill any which way you want. Same with Midwest cities - no issues splitting.

Indeed I was mostly thinking NYC there but its the same in LA too.

A lot of restaurants are won't split bills too many ways because it takes time and impacts table turnover. When you have a line out the door, turnover matters.

Back in Slovenia bill splitting doesn't exist. To me it's a completely American thing. The best they can do in Slovenia is charge everyone individually for their items, but that's not really bill splitting.

>"A lot of restaurants are won't split bills too many ways because it takes time and impacts table turnover."

How much time time does it really take? Let's compare it to a single check with with cash as the form of payment. Some diner at the table needs to go through the bill and and collect the money or else the bill gets passed around and then everyone antes up their portion, there always come confusion about what something on the check is or who had what. Then you need to collect all the cash and make change for everyone. Then the server needs to settle the check at the register.

Is that really any lengthier than just splitting up the check for individual diners? I am doubting it.

Yeah people don't do that. The way splitting works in the US is that you split evenly.

So 1 person pays then says "Everyone venmo me $X" and the party leaves.

I'm quite familiar with the way it works in the US. If it's a birthday dinner or your circle of friends then yes people will likely split it evenly, but if you are a mixed group of people then people will generally pay for what they had. But regardless if its just "60 bucks a head" everyone at the table needs to settle up, and everyone throws in cash in a pile and takes their change out of the pile and then the pile needs to be sorted and counted and sometimes its short etc.

Only assholes ask for this. It's definitely not the norm. This is the fastest way to encorage me never to eat with you.

>Then the server needs to settle the check at the register.

This is where the time becomes an issue. Running each card can take awhile, and when you add up 4-5 cards, you get a real impact on time that the server can't be taking care of anything else. In a job that doesn't have a lot of downtime, 5-6 minutes tied to a computer can be detrimental.

Nobody splits with cash, though.

That’s the restaurants excuse but it doesn’t hold up. The couple of minutes spent doing it when places support it is usually replaced with several times longer of diners working out how to handle it amongst each other at the table

Restaurants in China don't split bills. It's a foreign concept.

You'll often find people at a table fight each other to pay for the entire bill.

That is literally what bill splitting is

I think it's more that credit cards charge the restaurant a flat fee per bill ($0.30ish?) So that eats into their profits at some point.

Same in Canada. Sometimes you have to tell them in advance so they keep track of each person's orders separately instead of assigning all purchases to the table. I haven't seen a restaurant that outright wouldn't do split bills.

Really? I've seen a bill be split 30 different ways at multiple places. It must be a huge hassle, but I think it's possible.

I was eating out (in the UK) with a large group earlier today and we split the bill between 13 happily. Didn't take too long with contactless cards either.

I think it depends on how convoluted your splitting is. To make things easy, my friends and I tell a waitress individual checks up front, then the couples will tell the server "pay these with this card." That is much easier than saying "these 3 on this bill, these two on one, these two on antoher, and three individuals."

In Australia it's not uncommon to see restaurants with "Sorry - No Split Bills" signs up at the cash register.

It's also not that uncommon to see the staff let you split the bill anyway on a case-by-case basis...

Far other end of what often gets labelled "millenial". Hadn't heard of Venmo until this HN thread.

I do live in the UK where interbank transfer of cash is almost instant and free of charge, so the need for it is rather less, I suspect.

Yeah, the UK has so much contactless payment and cheap or free transfers that it has, somewhat ironically, limited competition in this sector.

Even things like Google Wallet & Apple Pay seem to be treated with a “but... why?” attitude.

From my experience in the UK, those apps allow you to leave your card at home. Not much of a difference if you're carrying a wallet anyway, but if you carry just a phone and a card + ID in the phone case, you can now ditch the card. Otherwise I don't see the benefit.

Had my phone's NFC fail me (especially at tube barriers) enough times to recommend perhaps not relying solely on a phone for payments.

Ha. I generally leave the phone at home and just take a card. Slimmest wallet I've ever had. I've never carried ID, though. That would double the size of my wallet :(

Surprising that this is the first mention of Apple Pay in the thread, given the upcoming release in iOS 11. I wonder how they'll resolve these issues. Will commercial transactions be technically forbidden? For how long, and for what reasons, will transactions be able to be reversed? When can we feel comfortable that the money is "really there"?

>Young millennial male, every single person I know uses Venmo.

Young millennial male, I'd never heard of this thing until now. These things tend to be emblematic of poor local banking infrastructure. This reminds me a lot of echocash[1].

[1] https://www.econet.co.zw/ecocash/

I believe Venmo is US-only. Determining whether the US has poor local banking infra is left as an exercise to the reader. ;)

It does. (European, lived 8 years in the US in 2 installments of 4 years each).

In what way? Is small, easy P2P payments a solved problem in Europe?

Bank transfer. No fees, fast enough (at least inside a country next business day, I think internationally it's allowed to be a bit slower?), if you want to do it mobile there are enough banks that have apps.

I can do bank transfers from my bank, but I feel awkward saying, "hey, can I get your routing and account number?" Even if I didn't feel awkward, with Venmo and Square Cash, I have all the information I need if either we're FB friends or have their email address.

Not an issue here (at least not in my circles, I couldn't even name any app like Venmo that's available here. Maybe Paypal has features like that by now, I see advertisements from them occasionally, but it never has come up, so I guess figuring out what apps the others use would be more hassle)

>Even if I didn't feel awkward, with Venmo and Square Cash, I have all the information I need if either we're FB friends or have their email address.

Unless you want to send money to someone who isn't using those services.

For sure. But almost everyone I know has one or the other, if not both. That kennitala system sounds really cool, especially if people are conditioned to pass around their account number.

I just found that when I would try to send electronic checks here, people got weird about handing over their routing and account numbers. Sometimes I would even say, "You know, the numbers that are on every check you've ever issued." Didn't matter, there was still some weirdness about it.

That's definitely part of why I like Venmo and Square Cash. It's much closer to a unilateral transaction.

>That kennitala system sounds really cool, especially if people are conditioned to pass around their account number.

>I just found that when I would try to send electronic checks here, people got weird about handing over their routing and account numbers.

I think that uncertainty is definitely part of the problem. The criticality of keeping an SSN secret whilst paradoxically sometimes having to have it on hand to give to specific authorized people seems like a recipe for paranoia.

The honest truth is I don't know if US bank account numbers need to be kept secret. I would hope not, but I also wouldn't be that surprised if someone told me they did. I can understand people taking a defensive stance, but the fact that there is space for services like Venmo to exist is a direct sign that US banks are dropping the ball. Sending money between eachother more easily than using cash is practically the reason banks were invented (although certainly not the reason they are so big right now[1]).

That wouldn't bother me so much, except we've already been down this path. Paypal has rubbed it's name into the dirt by using it's position as an unregulated psudobank to "hold funds for investigation" and gather the interest, or to unilaterally close accounts and thus implicitly seize the funds within.

The idea of a vendor-locked payment system taking root really sits ill with me. It could cause major problems with paying rent or receiving wages for people who don't, won't or can't use compatible smartphones.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-09ap6zIB6I

I don't know if US bank account numbers need to be kept secret.

Yeah, they kind of should be since the number is basically all that someone needs in order to print cheques that take money out of a given account. The US has a "pull" system instead of the more secure "push" system in Europe where giving out a bank account number is totally normal (and was back in the day before electronic banking too).

The EU now has a pull system too, thanks to SEPA Direct Debits. The receiver only has to send an XML file to the bank claiming that the client signed a mandate authorizing them. The client does have 13 months to make a claim and get the money back, but it means that one has to carefully read the statements, rather than trust that every transaction was initiated by us.

Well it's not more awkward that the initial "can I have your phone number" or "can I add you on Facebook". You only do it once when you need it and never again.

Also, there's plenty of alternatives, bank transfers are usually the last resort. There's Revolut, Monzo, Ping It...

(UK perspective)

hey, can I get your routing and account number?

Why? That's what they are for.

A bank transfer happens pretty much instantly when I do it (First Direct, UK).

It can occasionally take up to an hour, but it's rare.

Yes. Iceland has a system called the kennitala. It's kind of like a social security number, except not secret.

If you give me your kennitala and your bank account number (10 digits), I can send you any amount of money, no lower limit (there might be an upper one, I haven't tried buying a house GIRO) without paying a fee, regardless of which bank you're with.

When I sign a rental agreement with my landlord, I give him my kennitala and no other details. He sets up a recurring payment request linked to my kennitala. Every month, the bill shows up in my account with a request to pay it, but it's not like a credit card charge, it's merely a request for payment, kind of like the inverse of me inputting my landlords bank details and kennitala myself. I can ignore it if I want to.

Because the kennitala is independent from the bank, I can change banks and my landlords rental bill, along with all my utilities bills, will automatically start showing up on my new account without anyone doing anything.

Canada has Interac e-transfers, which you send to an email or phone number and the user redeems them with their bank. It's a little more friction than tapping a button (you have to set up a pass code for redemption) but it's included with most chequing accounts.

Most banks charge a $1 fee though.

Most UK bank account allow you to pay using a person's phone number instead of account and sort number. Work across (all?) banks and payments are usually instant directly into the account.

Yeah it's called PayM

I've never heard of it except as an obscure Paypal competitor. And, it turns out it's essentially the same service as Paypal and is even owned by Paypal, since 2014.

I agree that services like this only serve to fill gaps in antiquated banking systems. From what I understand, in Australia, for instance, people can send money easily for free between bank accounts and do so routinely without 3rd party services - including paying at stores. Circa 2009, a friend from Adelaide rolled eyes that we still used paper checks in the US. We still do.

I remember checks from the 80s, my mum/dad used to have them. I never owned a check book.

Good for you? Maybe try one sometime: as it turns out, old things are not de facto bad.

if you enjoy keeping a running tally of how much is in your account, and love knowing that what you see when you check your balance at the bank is never up-to-date, checks are great!

man i quit doing that as soon as i could check my balance on the internet and just use a credit/debit card, just make sure you turn off 'overdraft protection' before doing this or you can dig a very deep hole of compound interest.

- signed, an early gen-xer

I use paper checks quite often. A lot of places still don’t take credit cards. Honestly, you don’t need to be a math major or accountant to keep track of how much money you have.

I agree, plus a lot of the best hole in the wall restaurants don't take credit cards.

As a non-American, it surprises me greatly that a restaurant that doesn't take credit cards would happily accept a cheque of all things.

Cards still don't mean your balance is up to date though - did your credit card payment get taken yet, are there any pending transactions? Okay, that's the balance, but what bills are still due to be taken by direct debit, and are there any standing orders?

Using a card isn't some magic solution for someone struggling to manage their personal finances.

Why would old things be bad anyway? That's an IT pop culture myth.

Yes, we're not disagreeing.

I'm a 20-something Australian who is possibly the only 20-something Australian I know who at one point had a chequebook.

The only time I've found cheques useful outside of paying for my rental bond (for which you need a bank cheque anyway) is when I've had to pay for something by posting in a form, and I don't feel like writing down all my credit card details on paper and having them stored rather insecurely.

The only other relatively common uses of cheques I hear of here are using bank cheques to exchange money when privately selling a car. Other than that, cheques are dead. As they should be.

Checks allow float to be used to my advantage.

Would you not consider PayPal one of these things? Definitely Square Cash.

What's an example of local banking infrastructure that helps alleviate the problem of needing to pay people money with ease? I'm not even sure how it works on my Huntington mobile app. I know I could do it fairly painlessly with Simple bank. Except it's really only easy if they're a Simple user I think. Otherwise I'll need to get their physical address which will mail them an actual check, or ask for their routing/checking.

Chase Pay makes it pretty easy I think? But really people who sign up just to use that and attach a non-Chase account are doing the same thing as Square Cash, Paypal, Venmo, etc.

edit: huh, interesting. On a Simple bank FAQ page about paying third parties, it also links some additional services:

https://www.simple.com/help/articles/payments-and-transfers/...

Here are a few common and useful services:

* Google Wallet - https://www.google.com/wallet With Google Wallet, you can send money to anyone in the U.S. with their email address or phone number. You can link your Simple account with your card number or your account and routing numbers.

* PayPal - https://paypal.com PayPal offers a wide variety of services. If you’re planning to use PayPal with your Simple account, here’s what you need to know: We cannot link to Paypal accounts under a business name, since your Simple account is for personal use. Some PayPal services may incur a fee. One thing to keep in mind when linking your Simple account to Paypal is that when you're asked for the bank name, you'll need to enter the name of our partner bank, BBVA Compass, rather than Simple.

* Square Cash - https://cash.me Square Cash allows you to send money for free with your debit card. You don't need a username or a passphrase—just the email address for the person you'd like to pay and your debit card number. Transfers are often instant, but they can take up to 1-2 business days.

* Venmo - https://venmo.com With Venmo, you can send money to friends and even authorize other people to withdraw funds from your Venmo balance. Venmo can be hooked up to Simple with your card number (make sure it's marked as debit, not credit), your bank account number, or both.

* Xoom - https://www.xoom.com Xoom primarily used to send money internationally. They do charge fees, which is typical for this type of service.

In Canada, we have a debit card network called Interac and can use it to send an "e-Transfer" to anyone else with a Canadian bank account using nothing more than their email address or phone number + a shared secret to claim the payment. Some number of free e-Transfers per month is typically included with bank accounts.

Interac solved the P2P payments problem for every social group that I'm in there.

Interac e-Transfers took 10+ min and cost me $1.50 every time I've used them. They're absolute garbage compared to Venmo.

I actually use Venmo in Canada with friends that have US bank accounts because it's still more convenient even having to calculate the exchange rate.

Distinctly non-millennial, creaky, grumpy middle aged fart here: venmo (and Google wallet) are great. Paying the babysitter? 10 seconds to find out their venmo username. Check that the picture looks right, send. Much easier than the alternative US bank-based solutions such as popmoney. Much less hassle than keeping cash around.

Maybe it's a regional thing? Almost no-one here uses Venmo. I mentioned it around my friends the other day and they'd never even heard of it. 2-3 people at my office use it semi-regularly but that's how they are--trying out almost any new app for anything. For all I know they've dropped it and are on to something else now.

If I tried to pay anyone with it I can guarantee they'd say (a more polite version of) "WTF is that? No. Do you have money? Try money."

Where are you?

It's really mostly a US problem, because of how hard wire transfers are to do here, compared to most other countries. All these services are basically wire transfers done right.

And in some other countries the banks aren't incompetent and have simply implemented the same thing themselves. Sweden has free wire transfers that take half a business day but despite this the banks still got together and implemented a free, instant, payment-via-phone-number app https://medium.com/@etiennebr/swish-the-secret-swedish-finte...

My friend groups use it for dinner etc. despite most places being able to split checks because it's easier for us to figure it out amongst ourselves than burden some waitress with splitting it (even if their software makes it easy, they still have to take four cards and run them all and return them to their proper owners and such).

How is Venmo any different from PayPal other than the social network aspect of it?

Why can't you just "Paypal it to you"?

It's because Venmo adds the voyeuristic aspect to an otherwise boring task of money transfer that PayPal had been doing just fine.

As someone in their early 30s living in the Valley, I actually don’t know too many people who uses Venmo. My friends are generally not too hung up on having exact numbers, as it isn’t worth the awkwardness & gives the opportunity for someone to be generous.

Maybe I generally just know decent human beings though. Greediness/cheapness is just not a problem in my circles.

You seem to be implying that people who use Venmo and/or prefer to deal in exact numbers aren't decent human beings. I suggest you reevaluate that position and consider how greed might not be the root cause of someone behaving that way.

I'd also argue that using a Venmo doesn't take away the opportunity for someone to be generous. Venmo isn't much different from cash except that it makes it more convenient to be precise - it certainly doesn't force anyone to be precise though.

It has only made splitting the check easier; i don't see it replacing cash any time soon.

Also a millennial male, same exact thing.

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