Venmo’s a handy app for those times when you need to split a check or pay a buddy back a round of beers—but according to a new survey, some Venmo devotees are using it to settle a different kind of debt: the one they owe their drug dealers.
A survey of more than 1,200 millennials by student loan marketplace LendEDU found that nearly one-third of them admitted to using the payment app to buy drugs. Notably, that’s more than the 21% who said they’ve used the app for gambling purposes.
When asked about the study, Venmo emailed Coins2Day the following statement: “As clearly outlined in the Venmo User Agreement, people are prohibited from using Venmo for gambling or payments that involve drugs. If there is ever a situation where evidence of gambling or other illegal activity is brought to our attention, Venmo works quickly to take appropriate action.”
Beer, pizza, and fantasy football, by the way, were the most used terms by users in a separate study of over 500,000 Venmo transactions.
If they’re hoping for anonymity in these deals, millennials aren’t thinking things through too clearly. Venmo transactions are kept on file, just as a credit card transaction would be.
Despite that, the number of people using Venmo for less-than-legal purposes is likely to continue climbing in years to come. The PayPal payment app is on track to process $20 billion in payments per year.
