Whether you’re buying something online from an ecommerce website or paying someone for their services, we all use online payment methods of all kinds. While some websites like Amazon have their own payment gateways, most other smaller websites and services will use third party payment gateways for the same. And even though there are a lot of such payment gateways to choose from, Venmo is considered as a highly popular one.
In fact, if you send online payments quite frequently, then you might have used Venmo in the past as well. It is one of the most popular options out there thanks to all the various features that it offers. One of the best things about Venmo is that it offers almost instant payments which makes it highly versatile for most. However, Venmo does have a few issues of its own especially regarding payment cancellations and refunds. And if you’re trying to cancel a Venmo payment, then things can be a little difficult and confusing.
Thus, to fully understand everything related to cancelling Venmo payments, we are here with a complete detail for the same. You can go through this guide and easily learn how to cancel a Venmo payment.
Also Check: How to Cancel AT&T Internet Service?
Is it Possible to Cancel a Venmo Payment?
Before checking any other detail on how to cancel a Venmo payment, you should know more about the terms and conditions related to Venmo payments. This is important to ensure whether it is even possible to cancel a Venmo payment or not. Unfortunately, because Venmo offers instant payments to all its users, it is not possible to cancel a Venmo payment.
As soon as you make a payment over Venmo, the money gets sent and added to the receiver’s account right away. And according to the terms and conditions of Venmo, once money has been deposited into an account, it cannot be cancelled or sent back to you. While this is great for the receiver for the safety of their money, it might not be the best for the sender if you’ve accidentally sent money to a wrong account.
While there are ways to get your money back if you send it to an inactive account which will be discussed later on in this guide, in other cases you’ll be at the mercy of the receiver. Even though Venmo can try to help you with the same, they do not guarantee it if you can cancel a Venmo payment or not. If you have sent any money to the wrong person, it completely depends on them whether they want to send the money back or not. But if you want to try getting in touch with receiver to request them for a refund, you can follow these instructions:
- Start by opening the Venmo app and select the Send-Request icon situated at the upper right corner of the screen.
- Now, search for the person to whom you’ve accidentally sent a payment.
- Finally, simply enter the amount of money you’ve accidentally sent and request the same amount.
- And if the receiver is an ethical person, they can possibly return the entered amount to you.
1. Cancelling a Venmo Payment made to an Inactive Account
As mentioned earlier, even though it is not possible to cancel a Venmo payment if made to a working Venmo account, things are different while making a payment to an inactive Venmo account. Since you’re making a payment to an inactive amount, it will not be received by anyone on the other end. Thus, getting back your money in such a case can be much easier.
Whenever you send money to an inactive account or to someone who hasn’t registered on Venmo yet, the payment will not get processed. Instead, it will go under pending or incomplete. Since you can simply cancel an incomplete payment in Venmo, getting money back in such a case is much easier. You can simply follow these steps one by one if you want to cancel a Venmo payment made to an inactive account or unregistered account:
- Once you’re inside the Venmo app, simply go to the Menu from the left hand side section.
- Here, go to the Incomplete section and open the Payment tab where you will find your Venmo payment made to an inactive account or an unregistered Venmo account.
- Then, you can simply open the Payment that you want to cancel and select the Cancel option. Doing so will terminate the payment and send the money back to you.
2. Cancelling a Venmo Payment made in iMessage?
Apart from sending and receiving money directly from the Venmo app, a lot of Venmo users also manage their money transfer from iMessage. Since almost everyone with an iPhone uses iMessage, Venmo has offered the functionality of sending money via iMessage as well.
Thankfully, unlike the Venmo payments app, any money sent via iMessage does not get settled in the receiver’s account instantly. Instead, they have a total of 3 days to accept any payments being made to them. As a result, until the receiver accepts your payment, you can still cancel it. For the same, you can follow the instructions given here:
- Similar to cancelling inactive account payments, start by going to the Menu in the Venmo app.
- Now, you need to go to the Incomplete section and head over to the Payment tab where you can find all pending payments including the ones made by iMessage.
- In case you want to cancel any of these payments, you can simply open the payment details and select cancel. Venmo will then refund the payment back to your account.
What happens when a Venmo Payment isn’t Refunded?
Even though we have already mentioned various ways to possibly cancel a Venmo payment, there is still a possibility that you are not able to cancel a Venmo payment. This might be the case when you’ve sent payment to a wrong account and they are not refunding it even if you have requested it multiple times. In such a scenario, you can consider getting in touch with Venmo to request for their help as given in these steps:
- For getting in touch with Venmo support, you need to go to the Venmo app and open its Menu.
- Inside the Venmo Menu, open the Get Help section for contacting Venmo support.
- After that, you can either select the Submit a Ticket or Chat with Us option to get in touch with Venmo Support. You can then explain your issue to them to possibly get a refund for your Venmo payments.
How can you Decline a Venmo Payment?
Just like you may send a payment to the wrong person, someone else may send an incorrect payment to you as well by mistake. And since they can’t get a refund of the payment directly, you may want to decline Venmo payments. Unfortunately, Venmo doesn’t allow its users to decline payments to make the whole payment process seamless. As soon as you get a payment, it will be accepted and received in your account automatically.
1. Using Venmo Payments Wisely and Correctly
Now that you know that Venmo has quite poor refund policy and payment cancellation options, it is highly important to use Venmo Payments wisely and correctly for both financial and ethical reasons. Starting with financial reasons, since you can’t cancel Venmo payments easily, make sure to use Venmo only with friends and family. Try to avoid sending money to strangers via Venmo and use alternatives instead.
On the other hand, using Venmo Payments wisely and correctly is also important for ethical reasons. There can be cases where you accidentally receive a payment from someone else. And in that case, it is highly recommended that you refund the money back right away so that they don’t lose money because of a small payment details mistake.
Conclusion
Out of all the various payment apps available out there, Venmo is one of the best ones especially when it comes to payment speed and ease of use. It even offers various features like integration with iMessage which makes it one of the easiest to use payment apps out there. However, because of the limited terms and constrictions of the Venmo Payments app, cancelling your payments can be a bit difficult. Thus, we have already covered complete details on how to cancel a Venmo payment, how to decline one, and much more details. While all of this information should be enough for cancelling Venmo payments, feel free to leave your thoughts and questions in the comments section down below!
