As jake said, I changing the default setting for future transactions, yes it's set to public when you create your account, but if you're not willing to read any

As jake said, I changing the default setting for future transactions, yes it's set to public when you create your account, but if you're not willing to read anything, at all, when using a service I'm not sure there's any way to protect you anyways. In the app it's pretty clear what's gonna be private and public when you're setting up the transaction and if you can't be bothered to pay attention then idk what to tell you. Also as others have pointed out, it seems most people enjoy the social aspect of venmo, in fact they'll usually post things in a way that seems to be for a more public audience, I'd argue that venmo would be doing a disservice to its users if it forced them to change their privacy policy from private to public when most people seem to want it to be public.