How to Cancel a Venmo Payment

If you live in the US, there’s a big chance that you have your own Venmo account. Its use is so widespread that it’s now part of the everyday life of the average US resident.

That said, they may come a time that you have to cancel a payment made on Venmo. Luckily, canceling a Venmo payment doesn’t have to be a stressful situation.

This article will teach you how to cancel a Venmo payment quickly and easily.

What is Venmo?

Venmo is a mobile payment service originally created to better facilitate small transactions between groups. At first, family and friends used Venmo to do things like split a bill.

In 2016, PayPal acquired Venmo, transforming the app into a business-to-consumer payment solution.

Back in 2020, the service announced that Venmo and Paypal would start allowing users to buy cryptocurrencies.

The situation would improve further in 2021, when Venmo announced its roll-out of the ability to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies in its platform – though only for a select few users.

Apps rise and fall through the years, but Venmo is still the dominating form of the P2P (peer-to-peer) transaction intermediary market. Here are a few reasons why:

• Convenience. Venmo provides unparalleled ease of use, allowing equal ease for peer-to-peer and B2C (business-to-consumer) transactions. Nowadays, you can pay for almost everything with Venmo, as long as you have it linked to your accounts.
• Sociability. This payment app inserts a social side to its use by allowing users to communicate through text and emoji. Made primarily as an app for splitting bills, this ability takes the awkwardness out of asking someone to repay your money.
• Versatility. Venmo moves with the times. With cryptocurrency rising quickly in popularity and in use, we see how Venmo adapts to trends and stays on top.

How to Cancel a Venmo Payment

Venmo is a convenient tool that allows you to send funds to someone else instantly. While this is generally a very useful feature, sometimes this efficiency and speed can get us into trouble.

For example, you may not realize that you’re sending the wrong amount to someone. Typing $50 instead of $5 is a pretty common occurrence, and it would all serve us to be more careful.

Additionally, you can also send your money to the wrong account. Instead of sending it to your friend’s account named Jason-4, you sent it to Jason-44.

Or maybe you just didn’t think that the first payment went through and made another – only to realize that both payments went through and your online wallet is now short.

There are plenty of possible reasons why you might want to cancel a Venmo payment, but the important thing is that we know how to do it.

Can You Cancel Venmo Payments?

The short answer is that: no, you can’t cancel Venmo payments. Once payment has been made, it will instantly reflect in the other person’s account and is immediately accessible.

This means that even if you put the amount or account wrong, it can’t be reversed once the transaction goes through.

However, there are still some things you can try to get your money back. That’s what we’re going to talk about in the next sections.

What to Do if You Sent a Payment to the Wrong Person

If you simply sent the wrong amount, then you can just request for the extra to be paid back. After all, you’ll most likely know each other and realize the mistake.

However, the situation can be a bit more difficult if you send it to the wrong person entirely. Chances are, you won’t know that person, and they won’t know you. They don’t have the incentive to give your money back.

Nevertheless, the first thing you should do when you send the payment to the wrong person is to ask for your money back respectfully.

Explain the situation, recognize your mistake, and apologize for the inconvenience you’re causing them. If they send the money back – then great! You don’t need to do anything else. 

Requesting For Your Money Back

You can request to return your money with Venmo’s standard method. Here’s how you can do that.

1. Open Venmo on your mobile phone.
2. From your home screen, pick the “Pay or Request” button on the very bottom of the interface.
3. Enter the username that you accidentally sent the money to on the fields provided.
4. It’s also recommended that you provide a short note on why you’re requesting their money.
5. Type in the amount of money you sent by mistake.
6. To push the transaction, tap Request.
7. Tap the next prompt to confirm your transaction.

You can also send them a reminder if you think they’ve seen your request and note but forgot.

1. On your Venmo app, tap the sandwich icon on the upper right corner of the interface.
2. From the drop-down menu, tap “Incomplete.”
3. You should then see different sections of transactions. Under “Requests,” you’ll see all the incomplete fund requests. Tap the Remind button below the request line to send them a reminder.
4. The button will change to “Reminded” once your reminder has gone through.

What to Do if You Made a Duplicated Payment

If you made a duplicated payment, you could do the same process as the one above to help recover your money.

However, since a duplicated payment usually means that you sent the wrong amount to the right person, perhaps your chances of getting your money back will increase.

How to Contact Venmo if a Payment is Not Returned

However, if the other party is not responding or refuses to give your money back, you can contact Venmo Support. Venmo doesn’t guarantee that they’ll get your money back, but they will do what they can to help.

To contact Venmo support, follow the steps below.

1. Go to their support hub and select the situation most applicable to your situation.
2. You will then be directed to a page where you will submit a ticket by filling out the respective fields. Enter all the required information, such as your full name, phone number, registered email, and more.
3. Write the nature of your concern under the “Tell us what’s up” field.
4. Include attachments if you want. These can be screenshots of the payment you made, of your account, and the other party’s account.
5. Click Submit.

Now you’ve notified Venmo support of your situation. Once again, this doesn’t guarantee that your money will be returned, but at least they will hear your complaint and do what they can.

You can also send them an email or chat with a representative with the Email us or Chat With Us options.

Read More

• How to Add Money to Venmo
• How to Set Up a Venmo Account
• How Does Venmo Make Money?
• How to Close a Venmo Account
• How to Use Venmo

How to Cancel a Venmo Payment: Conclusion

The Venmo payment app can be an incredibly useful tool, so much so that almost all of us use it in our everyday transactions.

However, if you make a mistake in using this app, be prepared to lose your money. You can’t cancel or reverse a payment – although you can nullify your error by negotiating with the recipient. You can also contact support to notify them, but they don’t make guarantees.We have to deal with these situations if we want to keep on using Venmo’s admittedly excellent service. But if you want to close your Venmo account for good – that’s understandable too.

Frank Gogol

I’m a firm believer that information is the key to financial freedom. On the Stilt Blog, I write about the complex topics — like finance, immigration, and technology — to help immigrants make the most of their lives in the U.S. Our content and brand have been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and more.

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