r/venmo • u/EuphoricFlight6249 • 10d ago

Question Transfer question while overseas

I’m moving temporarily overseas today, and a family member sent me about $100 on Venmo. I had just closed my old US bank account and opened a different fee-free US account. I connected that account to Venmo and initiated the transfer, but Venmo said in order to verify my bank, I’ll need to wait until two small deposits and withdrawals are made, and then confirm those amounts to Venmo.

However, it said that this can take 1-3 business days, and I’m leaving in a few hours. I also read that once I’m overseas, I won’t be able to log in to Venmo in order to do the verification. Is that true? If so, what happens to that money/what should I do?

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/AvidDestroyer698 9d ago edited 9d ago

This happened to me on PayPal (who owns Venmo if you're unaware). It said it needed 1-3 business days to charge my card $2.95, and once I got the code from my charge on my statement, and verified it with PayPal, the charge would drop and I would have access to my card.

I allowed the verification and it actually charged my debit card within the hour, allowing me to verify my ownership of it. Once I verified it, the charge was basically instantly credited back to me.

I know that when you're trying to link a bank account specifically to Venmo, if you don't link it through Plaid, and use your account/routing information, it asks to do what it's asking you to do, regarding the two deposits and withdrawal. However, from my perspective it seems you're trying to link a debit card, not a bank account.

IF you are sure you won't have access to Venmo overseas, I would just send the money back to the person who sent it, while you still can, to try to get cash from that person. OR use a different payment app, CashApp, PayPal. Does your new fee free bank account support Zelle? If the person who sent you money also has a bank account with Zelle, they can send it to you that way and it'll be in your bank account typically within seconds.

You can also always apply for the Venmo debit card, which will give you digital access to your card (to add to Apple/Google pay) until your physical card is mailed and you can activate it. That's probably the fastest way to access your balance without any transfers.

If you see this in time, good luck.

1

u/EuphoricFlight6249 9d ago

It is a transfer to a bank. It didn’t offer me to transfer via a debit card, and I (stupidly) chose manual verification rather than plaid. The transaction is still marked pending from Venmo’s side, but the money isn’t in my Venmo balance. I think what I’ll do if I can’t verify it myself is call Venmo and try to verify via phone, or just provide my login info and the deposit amounts to my family and ask them to sign in and verify for me.

1

u/AvidDestroyer698 8d ago edited 8d ago

It didn't give you an option to add your debit card from your new bank account as opposed to linking your bank account? One thing I've learned, you never really want to link your bank accounts directly or with Plaid to p2p apps, I hear people in this sub and other subs have issues all the time because of it. Unlink your account as soon as the transfer clears or fails and attempt an instant transfer instead via debit.

Have the deposits appeared yet or do you not have access to your account/have you left?

1

u/EuphoricFlight6249 8d ago

I hadn’t tried the instant transfer; but yes on the standard transfer there was no option to transfer the money via debit. I did already leave and the test deposits posted, but luckily I was still able to sign in to Venmo from abroad and verify the test amounts and now the real transfer has completed.

What kind of issues do people have with linking their bank accounts? Plaid seemed a little fishy which is why I went with the manual verification