Nicole found out the guy she was dating was already in a committed relationship. Abby learned that her ex had most likely hooked up with someone new, and Ben discovered that a long-ago casual fling had apparently developed a drug habit.
The sleuthing tool that cracked these relationship mysteries was not a private investigator, but the peer-to-peer payment app Venmo.
The mobile payment service[1], which processed more than $35 billion in payments last year, is a no-fuss solution for splitting the dinner bill after a night out with friends.
But Venmo users have found it’s also an extremely effective tool for keeping tabs on friends, partners and exes, researching crushes, and in some cases, uncovering infidelity. Some even say Venmo is a better method for watching people than more explicitly public social media platforms like Facebook FB, -0.54%[2] or Instagram.
Some users seem to forget that their transactions are public by default, and their payment activity provides an unfiltered paper trail of what’s really happening in their lives.
“What you’re seeing on Instagram or Facebook is what they want you to see,” said Abby Faber, a 19-year-old freshman at Indiana University. “They’re edited pictures that they put up. But with Venmo, it’s very normal casual interactions. It’s what they were doing and spending money on.”
In her case, she checked up on her ex-boyfriend and saw he was spending money on pizza and the popular video game Fortnite[3]—and making regular payments to one girl, who Faber guessed is his new hook-up.
She also did some fact-finding on a new crush and saw that she may have competition: he had recently donated to another girl’s charity event. “Not that I care,” she said. “It’s just interesting to see.”
The social feed is Venmo’s ‘secret sauce’
Venmo has had a social component since it launched in 2009. Users see a feed of both their own friends’ payments and total strangers’ activity every time they open the app, and it’s easy to look up users. Exact amounts aren’t listed, but you can see who’s paying who and which words or emoji they use to describe the payment.
That’s bad news for people who use Venmo to pay their drug dealer [4]and then actually write “drugs”[5] in the payment’s description field, but great for amateur detectives. One Chicago woman told MarketWatch she used to do “minor celebrity stalking” of “Saturday Night Live” cast members and former Disney Channel DIS, +0.09%[6] child actors on the app....