Do you need to pay a friend back to buy your movie ticket, but will not see one? while? Or maybe you want to send your money nephew for his birthday, but fear the check would be lost in the mail? Snapchat has partnered with room for a new feature, Snapcash, which enables its users to send and receive money on the application. It is as easy as sending selfies with Snapchat, but how safe is it?
How Snapcash work?
The first time you use Snapcash, it will ask you to connect a debit card to your account through the site, which means that you will automatically become a user places in the process. You must enter your card number, security code and billing code before you can send or receive money. Sending money on Snapchat is similar to sending messages on the application. The recipient will receive a notification, and must also link a debit card to its Snapcash account to receive money. Once they link their card, the money will be deposited into their account. Unlike regular messages, money transaction messages will not disappear from your chat history in Snapchat. Once you send the money, the recipient has 24 hours to link their debit card to claim the money. If they fail to do so, the money is refunded to the sender.
One of the drawbacks with Snapcash is that there is no way to cancel a transaction after sending. This means that if you send it to the wrong person or send the wrong amount, there is a chance that you have created a headache for you, especially since you have to go through to Square the challenge.
Is it safe?
The only security feature that has Snapchat is a parameter that requires you to enter the security code of your card before each payment. With the history of the app was with the pirates, it does not seem enough. However, Snapchat would operate only the message itself, leaving room to control the financial aspect. This means Snapchat does not store any of your debit card information, as instead encrypt and submit it to their servers.
So, can you trust the site with your financial information? Square is best known for giving small businesses a way to accept credit cards for payments via a smartphone device scanning or tablets that function like cash registers (as you've seen on trucks food or small shops and stores). Although the company has a long history of storing information safely, it is always best to be skeptical to put your financial information.
Note also that since Snapcash requires you to use a debit card instead of credit, you may be financially vulnerable if the square is always violated. This is because you will be vulnerable to someone to access all your bank accounts linked to the card, instead of a single credit card account. Learn more about why credit is a better option than debit here.
What are the limits?
Snapcash is currently only available for Snapchat users in the United States, who are aged at least 18 years and who have a Visa or Mastercard debit card. There is also a limit on how much money can be sent and received. According Snapchat, the limit on remittances may be increased to up to $ 2500 per week and $ 1,000 per month for the funds received.
The Snapcash feature is available only for payments of peer-to-peer, meaning that you can not use it to make purchases from suppliers. There are other options for payment peer-to-peer, PayPal and mobile Venmo, but each has its own drawbacks, safety being the primary concern. Most of these applications and payment services peer-to-peer as this store all your information, so that everyone could have access to your phone or your computer could use your card for themselves and send money take you for everything you have. Venmo also has a large social component, which encourages you to share the history of retail transactions - like news feed of Facebook, but with payments sent and received between friends. This may not be the type of information you want posted online for anyone to see potentially.
Should I use?
With Snapcash, money is sent directly to your debit card and deposited into your account, regardless of which bank the other party uses, and without charge at each end. There is no login or password to remember (as long as you stay connected to Snapchat) and no special software required to use the service. But since the place and most other payment applications store your information, you can download a mobile application to separate Internet security for security reasons. Many of these types of applications, such as ESET and BitDefender offer special security features that make applications you use are safe. BitDefender is even a feature that you can activate that prompts you to enter a PIN every time you access an application like Snapchat, giving you an extra layer of protection since no one can enter the application without the PIN.
As with most online services, you should always be wary of adding people you do not know you better protect against identity fraud, and monitor your banking transactions per day. Visit our identity protection against theft blog to learn other precautions you can take to protect yourself against identity theft.