Venmo, Zelle, Cash App leaving users vulnerable to fraud: Manhattan DA

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg put Venmo, Zelle and Cash App on notice for leaving users vulnerable to fraud. He has requested meetings with the companies.

Venmo, Zelle and Cash App are leaving consumers vulnerable to fraud that's "draining bank accounts of significant sums of money," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in letters to the companies that own those financial apps. He demanded they increase protections.

Bragg's letters said he was writing "in response to a growing number of incidents" involving fraud and theft "through the exploitation of your company's mobile financial applications on personal electronic devices such as iPhones."

Peer-to-peer payment services now handle an estimated $1 trillion in payments and the district attorney said "frauds and scams have proliferated" as usage climbs.

In the past year, there have been thefts stretching from Los Angeles, where several people were robbed of thousands of dollars through Venmo at knifepoint, to Orlando, where a woman had thousands drained from her Venmo after a child asked to use her phone. Similar thefts and robberies have been publicly reported in West Virginia, Louisiana, Illinois, Kansas, Tennessee, Virginia and elsewhere across the United States.