Daniel Negreanu and Erik Seidel have both had their Venmo accounts hacked, according to tweets posted yesterday. The pair of high stakes regs are unlikely to miss the money, given their enormous bank balances, but they did both sound cheesed off with the hassle.
Negreanu and Seidel Hacked on Venmo
Venmo is a mobile payment app owned by Paypal for US residents. It offers easy, fast transfers of cash with a few simple clicks on a smartphone. They are an identity thief’s dream.
The dude who robbed my @venmo @VenmoSupport account has some balls. Cleaned it out and then still tried to pay for a $43 Uber ride on my dime.
You just stole $15k dude, and you still need to get me for $43 more? Ain’t you a piece of work.
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) November 25, 2020
US News network CNN reported a fortnight ago,
“All pay apps say they need access to certain personal information, including names, Social Security number and bank account numbers. They also collect information about activity in the app, such as transaction histories that show when and where and for whom users made or received payments.”
Negreanu was fuming. Not only has $15,000 been swiped from his account, the cheeky scam artist also tried to charge a $43 Uber journey to the account too!
“You just stole $15k dude, and you still need to get me for $43 more? Ain’t you a piece of work.”
Is Venmo Safe?
We don’t know how this all happened, but it is a bit strange to have two high-profile poker players stung on the same day. There hasn’t been any press release regarding stolen data from the Venmo company servers.
Some brief research shows that the website Investopedia covered Venmo security flaws a while back. They wrote,
“After gaining access to a user’s account, hackers can easily transfer a user’s Venmo balance to a new bank account. And by changing the user’s linked email address, hackers can reroute a user’s transaction notifications, leaving them in the dark…”
Erik Seidel didn’t say how much money he lost, but he wasn’t impressed with the slow customer service from Venmo.
Looks like my Venmo has been hacked & email connected to the account changed. I’ve tried calling, emailing & contacting @venmo & @VenmoSupport with no response for the last hour
— Erik Seidel (@Erik_Seidel) November 24, 2020
Financial companies are usually fast-acting when it comes to fraud. Venmo will be kicking themselves when they realise how high-profile Negreanu and Seidel are.
Not the First Hacking Story in Poker
Ever since online poker was born there have been tales of mischief with many high-profile hacking scams taking place.
Former EPT winner Peter Jepsen was jailed last year for installing trojan malware on his fellow poker player’s computers in order to be able to view their screen. The 38-year-old Danish high-stakes star got away with the hacking for at least six years and was only jailed for four years.
It seems to be a fact of life for the top players. When people know that you have plenty of cash they assume you’re more likely to be careless, which makes you a target.
Don’t forget to check out the latest poker news to see what’s been going on in the poker world.
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