Venmo just doesn’t cut it for most car deals. With its $4,999.99 weekly limit, it’s useless unless you’re buying a clunker. It’s a shame because everyone loves Venmo’s simplicity and instant fund transfers.
If you’ve been wishing there was a Venmo-like alternative, built specifically for high-dollar car transactions, you’re in luck. Keep reading—but first, a bit more about Venmo.
Venmo is a peer-to-peer mobile payment app for small, casual transactions between friends and family. Here’s a quick rundown of how it works:
For splitting the cost of a night out, Venmo is great. But for a car? It’s technically possible, but not at all practical.
Venmo is fast, easy to use, and doesn’t charge fees for moving money between people. But there’s a catch—actually, several catches:
Vehicle transactions are a different beast than other transaction types, and they need a robust payment gateway that can handle their nuances, complexities, and large sums of money. To complete private-party car deals safely and efficiently, buyers and sellers need a payment app built to their unique needs.
| Need | Does Venmo have it? | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
|
Instant transfers
|
Yes |
Instant transfers lubricate the transaction process and eliminate hassle and stress. |
|
No (or very low) fees |
Yes |
Venmo does not charge for fund transfers. |
|
User-friendly mobile app |
Yes |
Venmo’s mobile app is intuitive and easy.
|
|
Identity verification |
No |
Scammers love secrecy. Legitimate buyers and sellers need their counterparty verified to eliminate fraud. |
|
Title check |
No |
Wouldn’t it be nice if a buyer could order a title check from their payment app and avoid branded titles and stolen vehicles? |
|
High-dollar transactions |
No |
A proper car payment app should allow $30k, $300k, or $3M per transaction. With its $4,999.99 weekly limit, Venmo is a lightweight. |
|
In-app transactional workflow |
No |
Car transactions are complicated and high-stakes. They need a process that takes the buyer and seller through the different stages of the transaction and makes it easy for them. |
|
Available around the clock |
Yes |
Venmo is available 24/7/365. Whenever you’re ready, it’s ready. |
|
In-app signing of the bill of sale |
No |
Buyer and seller find themselves locked in a catch-22 (more on this below). A digital bill of sale would break the stalemate. |
|
Add-on services |
No |
Buyers and sellers often need additional services (professional car photography, car transport, etc). What if they could order those from the same app they used for the transaction itself? |
We think every buyer and seller should have all the above capabilities in their pocket. But before we get into how DealNow provides all of this and more, we need to discuss one of the biggest sources of friction in private-party car sales: the catch-22 of trust between strangers.
When two strangers come together for a car transaction, they don’t trust one another. Not that they explicitly distrust each other, but neither party wants to be a dupe. Here are their respective concerns:
Neither wants to be a victim of a bad actor who escapes with both money and car, leaving them in the lurch. While everyone recognizes this as a fairly unlikely scenario, it’s not worth the risk when dealing with large amounts of money.
The conflicting imperatives of buyer and seller create an impasse. Here are two common solutions people have used to overcome it:
DealNow overcomes the catch-22 in the following ways:
Remember that table of needs we discussed earlier? DealNow addresses each one, combining Venmo’s best features with additional safeguards tailored for high-value vehicle transactions:
DealNow retains Venmo’s simplicity but adds the robust features needed for safe, efficient car transactions. It’s the solution both buyers and sellers have been waiting for.
The safest payment method when selling a car is DealNow. Unlike Venmo, DealNow does instantaneous, verified transfers of any amount directly between seller and the buyer.
DealNow’s platform promotes secure transactions by:
With DealNow, you get Venmo-like convenience with a transactional dealflow and no limits on funds transfer. Funds are held in FDIC-insured accounts with easy offboarding to your regular bank.
Personal checks are the least secure payment method for sellers, especially in high-value transactions such as car sales. Here’s why:
Venmo is much safer than physical cash. Physical cash is a hassle to withdraw from the bank, and it carries a risk of loss or theft. Sellers need to verify that it’s not counterfeit, and it takes time to do so. In short, physical cash is risky and inconvenient in large amounts.
DealNow is the easiest way to close your own vehicle deal, anytime. It’s the safe and simple way to avoid fraud, sign documents, and instantly transact, all in one app.
