People Have Gotten Some Really Rude Requests On Venmo
I'm thisclose to being a Luddite, and even I love electronic pay services like PayPal, Chase Quickpay, and Venmo. Here in the Onion, Inc., offices, our group sandwich orders would be a petulant hellscape without the convenience of easily sending our colleagues money. The A.V. Club's Kelsey Waite and I have basically been sending each other the same $12 back and forth for a couple of years now, due to a variety of Potbelly's orders.
But for as much as I use Venmo, I've never been requested to cough up cash for anything. Basically, I try not to be a deadbeat, and if I fail to chip in for tacos or something, I am gravely ashamed. So I have not had the annoying yet amusing experiences of the people who recently answered the following call on Twitter from writer Nicole Cliffe, as Insider points out:
The answers were pretty astounding:
I was charged for a glass of wine I drank (it was $12 wine), when invited over to dinner. Kicker, I also brought wine but chose to drink some of the bottle already opened that was offered to me. I left $19 wine with dinner invitees.
— Christina Warren (@film_girl) May 29, 2018
Group potluck. We all brought sides and wine (some even brought entrees). Friend cooked one main dish, which was burgers sous-vide. Machine wasn't working. We waited two hours to eat near raw burgers. Got venmo-ed the next day for the meat.
— Shane Pangburn (@shanepang) May 29, 2018
Friend of a friend's birthday, she buys two rounds of Gray Goose shots for everyone. Next day, everyone gets a $28 Venmo.
— Brian Jencunas (@BrianPJencunas) May 29, 2018
I guess I can see how these results happen: While you would (probably) never in a million years march up to somebody and demand 38 cents for the amount of salsa they ate at your house, Venmo offers you an extremely passive-aggressive way to do that. You can send your request off and forget it, and likely never follow up when your recipient (rightly) ignores your whiny demand for a pittance.
But still. How cheap can you get?
Rule of thumb, as original poster Cliffe pointed out on Twitter: Any unavoidable cash-haggling should be worked out preferably in advance, but at least before your party leaves the restaurant table or other group dining experience. Any undiscussed day-after requests are just plain wrong. But please feel free to share your pettiest Venmo, etc. stories below.