Joking about drugs , sex workers , and all sorts of other shameful or weird purchases is part of the fun of using payment app Venmo . It can also get you flagged as a possible security system risk .
For instance , order you sent someone money for “ iced coffee tree obama nsa inside job syria ” will trigger an qui vive for Venmo .
Writer Adam Johnson tweeted about how his champion ’s joke about surveillance in a Venmo payment take to this follow - up from the app :
Lol , my friend made a goofy banknote on a venmo payment and venmo contacted him 4 months later demand security questionspic.twitter.com/L28FNPUlwm
— Adam Johnson ( @adamjohnsonCHI)October 22 , 2015
I call for Venmo what it was precisely about “ ice burnt umber obama nsa inside job syria ” that prompted the company to call down an alert . consort to a troupe spokesperson , it was the last give-and-take . Since Syria is under authorisation in the US , payments that appear to involve the country get surplus attention :
Venmo is a fully regulated Money Service Business committed to provide our user a safe and easy agency to send and get defrayment , which means that we are creditworthy for complying with U.S Sanctions administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control ( OFAC ) . To minimize account interruptions , we are reach out to Venmo users on an item-by-item basis to wonder about post , which contain words or phrases that could be moot unsanctioned and clear up any confusion .
As you probably lie with , Syria is a canonical commonwealth and we are obligated to follow up when we see payments that are related to a canonical land , person or entity .
So it await like “ obama nsa inside job ” is cool to write on Venmo if you require to nullify getting bugged by Venmo . Of course , whether that word string will trigger an NSA enquiry is another affair .
Social mediavenmo
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , science , and culture news in your inbox day by day .
news program from the future , delivered to your present tense .
You May Also Like
