'$1000 Venmo Gift Card' Pop-Up Scam

The '$1000 Venmo Gift Card' pop-up scam is an online tactic that relies on people's willingness to not listen to their common sense when being presented with an offer to win free stuff. In this particular case, users who land on a website promoting the tactic will be tempted with an offer to receive a card worth $1000 for Venmo, a mobile payment service that is owned by PayPal Holdings Inc. The money is going to be gifted as a token of appreciation for the user's loyalty, apparently. It shouldn't be required to point out that this tactic is in no way connected to either Venmo or Paypal.

Instead, its creators are most likely after data that could start with emails, user names, and passwords and go as far as asking for names, surnames, phone numbers, addresses, debit/credit card and banking account details. Indeed, after dragging the user through several redirects and windows, the '$1000 Venmo Gift Card' pop-up scam states that to receive the gift card, visitors have to verify their details.

Usually, tactics such as the '$1000 Venmo Gift Card' pop-up scam do not rely on visitors stumbling on to them on accident as this would be quite inefficient. Instead, they are promoted by adware applications that forcefully redirect the users to them. That is why if you are seeing pages offering '$1000 Venmo Gift Card', it is recommended to scan your computer for adware or PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programs) that might have managed to sneak on to it.